How the God Generals Replicated Christmas
by Duo Himura
Summary: Luke's depressed again. Jade's decorating Fabre manor lethally. People go '...' a lot. It's just an average Christmas with our heroes, down to the God Generals having rereturned from the dead, with a new plan that will forever alter the fate of Christmas.
1. An Exercise in Stalling

_Author's Note: Okay, so I'm going to try to be as brief as possible here while giving you the story at the same time. This is, obviously, the first chapter of my new fic, this time for Tales of the Abyss, indeed an amazingly awesome game of awesome. This idea started way back last Christmas, when I decided that I really wanted to write a Christmas fic sometime (for the record, I'm the most Christmas-enthused Jew you're ever likely to meet… or even read the Christmas-themed writings of), but that I could probably never top Feonyx's "Coals" for a Fire Emblem RnK Christmas/Winter Solstice fic. At least, not without ripping it off (I mean, the guy already used bandits _and _ensuing chaos…). Not that that's a promise that I won't try, just that I thought it might not be a good place to start. So the vaguest of ideas for a Tales of the Abyss Christmas Party occurred to me, myself not having beaten the game yet (and let me tell you, when you're in a sort of depressed mood that game does _not _help brighten your spirits). But there were only a couple of ideas floating through my brain, so I didn't do anything with it, until I finally swapped my study hall for an open period, and ended up talking with a friend of mine, Julia. It was at this point that I really regretted not doing so earlier, what with her being a senior and going off to college next year, and the fact that we basically spent at least a solid 30 minutes out of each 2-hour block gasping for breath from laughter._

_Anyway, I discovered that she was also a TotA fan (and she actually got me to finish the game), and we started talking about this crazy idea, and brainstormed and much crack was invented and, well… this is the result. She actually contributed a _lot _of this material (don't ask me how much, we lost track of who came up with what ideas some time ago, with the exception of a few… she may have actually suggested the name, for that matter), and I really couldn't have asked for someone better to brainstorm crack with, so a lot of thanks and credit are due there. It is my sincere hope that this fic become _the _quintessential cracktastic humorous Tales of the Abyss fic based around a Christian holiday that technically doesn't exist in Auldrant, in spite of it being Pseudo Europe, that was written by a Jew. That's right, I'm coming for _you _Jewish TotA Easter fics! The plan was to write this completely Epic Christmas fic as a one shot… but as of now that would mean an ENORMOUS piece of writing all as one chapter. Basically my epicness got too epic for how I envisioned it, so it's going up in chapters (though it's really just the first 20 pages copy-pasted with some stuff attached to the end). Only this time I've got enough done already that I seriously doubt it'll be much longer before I finish it, though so far the month of August hasn't seen me writing very much, I'm sad to say. I actually wanted to finish this thing in July so I could pretend it was for "Christmas in July" and not "I'm crazy and writing a Christmas fic in the middle of Summer" but… well, if you've been following my work, or even if you just start reading this now, I think you'll abandon any notion of my sanity rather fast. If nothing else, I do have more that I can upload without much delay so if I get really stuck I can probably stall for another 2 chapters._

_And so, the obligatory bit, I don't own TotA, though really, how awesome would that be? All properties here belong to Namco and Tales Studios etc., and they won't sue me because they're awesome and this is just for fun… right? Being crack, persons looking for a plot in this narrative will be shot Mark Twain-style, but those looking for laughs at the expense of their favorite or least favorite or medium favorite characters are more than welcome. I'm going to be openly defying the canon in various ways (essentially I have the final scene of the game taking place, like, just after the prior scene, and Asch was there too), but all in the name of fun. Some sexual humor and potentially offensive language exist within, though the former tends to be implied rather than explicitly stated. As per usual, if you're easily offended, you seriously need to lighten up, but until then you may want to steer clear, as there's some religious-based humor here (really, does that surprise anyone). Though even a lot of the Christmas-based jokes tend to not necessarily mock Christmas so much… But anyway, without further ado (brief, huh? Oh well…), I give you "How the God Generals Replicated Christmas."_

**How the God Generals Replicated Christmas  
A Tales of the Abyss Fic  
By Duo Himura**

**Chapter(?) 1: In Which the Party Does Not Actually Begin**

Twas the day of the night before Christmas and all through the land there was no one more busy than our favorite Auldrantinese band. In the city of Baticul preparations were made for a most special, private party, the likes of which could only be bought with at least 7000 grade. Luke and Asch and Natalia, Jade and Guy, Tear and Florian and Anise had all... okay, nothing rhymes with Anise. Screw it. The ballroom was set and the time was now near for the group to celebrate that most special day of the year (Which they had all known about and celebrated since they were kids. Shut up.).

And no one was in a more festive mood than Luke fon Fabre. Until he found a valid reason to be depressed. Again.

"What's the matter _this _time, Luke?" Guy had asked upon seeing him mope around. Having been designated official "carrier of heavy objects" by Jade who, through some cruel twist of fate, was in charge of decorations, the noble turned servant turned noble again had been in better moods. The group sans Jade was currently just hanging around the entrance to Fabre manor, Jade having assured them that he wanted the decorations to be a surprise, then barring the door with a fonic arte that none of them had been able to break. Feeling quite certain that they faced imminent doom at the hands of Jade's no-doubt diabolically malicious interior design, a silence had fallen over them, until that moment.

"Oh, I was just thinking about all the people who aren't here who should be except that they're dead. It seems like just about everyone has lost someone: Natalia's biological father, your sister, Tear's brother and my master/creator, Jade's crazy teacher-person. I mean, I know they've all pretty much tried to kill us, but it's still sad." He paused for a moment, then added, "And what about those however-many thousand replicas and the people from Akzeriuth that I killed? We can't forget about them!"

"You were going to invite the entire population of Akzeriuth?" Tear asked, joining the conversation.

"It's in their town charter," Luke explained, with Natalia nodding in confirmation. "But the worst of it all is that Ion, who Anise had a completely hopeless crush on, isn't here in this special time of the year when everyone else is going to be 'Ooh, we're a couple!' Can you imagine what that would do to her? Oh… um… sorry, Anise," Luke apologized to the thirteen-year-old girl, who was standing three feet away in plain view. "Didn't mean to bring that up… really…"

"Come to think of it, everyone _is _paired up except Anise, pretty much…" Guy mused. "I mean, you're with Tear, unofficial- oh who do we think we're kidding here? Asch and Natalia are blatantly obvious even if Asch hates everyone, that just leaves myself and—" Guy stopped suddenly, but the damage was done. "No… no…" he glanced around nervously.

"As long as you're the one wearing the dress, I've no objections," a cynical voice remarked from behind him. Guy winced upon hearing the words as if they had actually caused him pain: somewhere in his heart he had still been concealing a tiny gem of hope which had metaphorically just shattered into thousands of lethally sharp pieces, ripping through his appendix, liver, and spleen. The fact that Jade had medical training didn't comfort him in the slightest. Metaphorically speaking.

"Hi Jade," Guy muttered unenthusiastically.

"Shall we meet up at the party, then? I'll be the dashingly handsome gentleman wearing a tuxedo and no pants."

"Please… just… stop…" Guy winced again.

"You do have a point, though…" Natalia said thoughtfully. "I haven't even been thinking about how awful and lonely you must feel, Anise… I just can't imagine what I'd do if Asch died." Oddly enough, and for reasons entirely unbeknownst to anyone, this statement was followed by a bout of coughing from almost everyone present.

"It was really a terrible loss…" Tear said. "You and Ion were so cute together. Um… that's not _why _it's terrible or… anything… um…" she trailed off.

Jade cleared his throat to speak, but was instantly interrupted.

"Look, I'm just fine, okay!" Anise shouted. "Wait… was the colonel about to say something… comforting-ish…?" The group turned to stare at Jade for a moment. The brown haired man began to speak again, only to be once more cut off by a simultaneous group "Nah."

Seeing that the laws of reality remained safely intact, Anise continued, "Everyone can stop worrying about me, and most of all, everyone can stop rubbing my nose in the fact that Ion, my one true love, et cetera et cetera things that should not be said about the leader of a religious order, is dead! Nothing's going to bring him back, and it's really not helping that you all keep talking about—"

"Ion!" the group collectively gasped, except for Jade, who didn't so much gasp as laugh maniacally. As a general rule, I mean. Not in this particular instance. That would have been weird.

"Would you stop that?"

"No, look!" Luke said, pointing. There, standing behind her was Ion himself, looking as healthy as he ever had, which meant that the untrained observer would have recommended him to a hospital in a second. This had actually happened several times on the way to Baticul, which was, itself, the main reason for his late(ish) arrival, and also the main reason that he was supposed to be accompanied by a guard. Anyway, where was I? Oh, right. Ion was standing there, short, girly, and decidedly not dead.

Suffice it to say, Anise was pleased to see him. Also suffice it to say that she expressed said emotion in a way that would make Mieu extremely jealous once he (?) regained consciousness and full use of his ears. Having an voice that was so high-pitched and obnoxious that it could render people unconscious was supposed to be _his _shtick (Mieu Ear-Splittingly Annoying High-Pitched Shriek™. It's the power granted by the Sorcerer's Ring if it picks up a concentration of seventh fonons).

On the less aural side of things, the word TACKLEGLOMP in all capital letters like that there really does an admirable job of describing the main interspersing bit of action.

"Well isn't that sweet and mildly disturbing," Jade remarked casually as the two collapsed to the ground, Ion not having expected quite such a warm welcome. Assuming he wasn't some sort of devious mastermind who had planned the entire encounter to go exactly as it had, which, being that he could read the future, wasn't entirely impossible. Except that it might cause the universe to implode. Tear, meanwhile, was attempting to cover the fact that she was blushing with a feigned cough that didn't fool anyone for a second.

"As I was trying to tell you before," Jade carried on in his usual, mildly superior tone of voice, "Ion is actually rather less dead than you all assumed back when he disappeared while healing Tear."

"WHY DIDN'T YOU SAY ANYTHING!?" demanded Anise in capital letters. The sound got somewhat muffled against Ion's robe… dress… thing… reducing it to mere lower case letters and garbling it a bit.

"Why didunt roo say anyfing?" the rest of the group heard, but the message more or less got across, largely because the rest of the group had shouted the exact same thing.

"Dramatic effect. Theme. You didn't ask," Jade offered casually, shrugging. "But I believe these gentleman have an explanation." He gestured offhandedly to two Oracle Knights who had been trailing Ion and now stood some distance behind him, looking as decidedly beleaguered as two men in full suits of armor can, and trying to assess if "hugging someone to death" was actually possible and if it were, if they should be concerned for their charge. "So, Guy, you explain."

"I don't have a clue what's going on!" Guy protested.

"And this is Ion's fault? For shame, Guy," Jade admonished.

"Allow me," the first generic knight said in an equally generic voice. "See, Ion was dying and whatnot, so at the last minute we invoked the power of Pikachu and the Japanese and swapped him over and had 4Kids dub him, and bam, he just got sent off to the hospital instead. It was supposed to be for all eternity and you'd never see him again and whatnot, but we busted him out and even got his voice fixed, and now he's pretty much as good as new."

"What took you so long?" Anise yelled at Ion's chest, which may or may not have been the object/person she actually intended the question for.

"Have you ever been in a 4Kids dub job?" The guard questioned by way of reply. "He's lucky he got out of it with his sanity and without cracking terrible puns! Well, we think he's sane, anyway… I mean, granted, it's maybe not the best idea to just take someone's word for it that they're not crazy, but he is a religious leader, so he'd probably know."

Seeming to accept this, Anise buried her head in Ion's chest again, saying something to the effect of "Oh, Ion! I'm so happy that you're okay! I was worried that—" only to stop short as it became apparent that she was literally crushing the air out of the Fon Master's lungs. The end result of all this activity was that Ion's face had settled somewhere between blushing and turning blue, giving his cheeks a violet hue that would have been really quite lovely if it hadn't meant that he was half-suffocating.

Jumping up with a stuttered apology at her lips, Anise helped Ion back to his feet. From there, he gave her a smile and said "Thanks. I'm happy to see you again, too, Anise." Tear was, at this point, attempting to look away without actually taking her eyes off of the scene, and fervently wishing she was randomly carrying a Japanese folding fan. And that it wouldn't look entirely bizarre if she were holding a Japanese folding fan in the middle of a pseudo-European society.

Seeing the reunion well under way, Luke promptly resumed his aforementioned moping. Suffice it to say, Guy was left wondering why exactly he was still depressed, having just learned that Ion wasn't really dead after all.

"Why are you still depressed having just learned that Ion wasn't really dead after all?" Guy asked. "I mean, come on, you said it was the worst of the whole thing that Ion was gone, and now he's not. How could you _possibly _turn that into a reason to be depressed?"

"But why is Ion the only one who gets to come back from the dead? It's just not fair!" Luke shouted sadly. "It's not like anyone else who's dead is going to miraculously appear, and that's just not right."

"What are you whining about now, Replica?" An unmistakable, angry tone came from somewhere above the two. With a flourish, a man in the dark robes of the Order of Lorelei with a sword as his waist leapt down from the roof of Fabre manor. His dramatic entrance finished, he turned to glare at Luke with strikingly green eyes.

"Asch…" Luke acknowledged his original. "It's just… why is it only Ion gets to violate the laws of reality to come to the Christmas party… everyone should be here!" The fact that Luke himself was effectively cloned from the man standing before him, and had gone on to more or less steal his life now behind them, the two had learned to tolerate each other.

"Because they're _dead,_ you idiotic dreck of a pathetic excuse for a replica who more or less stole my life from me." Okay, so "behind them" and "tolerate" may have been slightly strong words to use… "That's basically what being dead _means._ The dead don't come to Christmas parties except in really bad horror films."

"Well, you're the original, so I guess you'd know better than I would…" Luke said.

"Shut up, replica," Asch ordered.

Her "Asch senses" (i.e. ability to hear loud, angry shouting) tingling, Natalia spun around and exclaimed "Asch! You made it!" Asch grunted in a decidedly neutral manner by way of reply, which, based on his behavior patterns, the group had long since learned to interpret as a confession of his undying love for Natalia. Paraphrasing, of course.

"Well, seeing as everyone except for their various majesties is here, perhaps we should go finish all of our individual preparations?" Jade suggested.

"What difference does it make when all we are is dust in the wind?" Luke demanded, earning stares that ranged from "Shut the Hell up you idiot dreck!" to "Okay, that was kind of cute, but really weird…" (Three guesses whose those were. First two don't count). "The game of life is hard to play!" he went on, "And I'm gonna lose it anyway! The losing card I'll someday lay, so this is all I have to say: Someday I hope you get the chance to live like you were dying!" he shouted, his words ringing out over Fabre manor.

An awkward silence fell over the group as they all stared at Luke with now far more uniform expressions. A moment more passed in this manner before they turned and began to depart towards the various destinations where they were staying, without a word passing between them.

Luke, now rather more alone than he had been, sighed. "Well, I guess there's nothing to be gained by my moping around, so I may as well not… I mean, it'd be a first, but it's not like anyone else will actually come back to life. They're all gone, and there's nothing I can do about it… So I may as well enjoy myself. Right, Mieu?" Luke asked. "Wait…" Luke spun around several times, his eyes, darting this way and that, confirming his suspicions. "Oh come on!" he shouted at no one in particular. "Mieu too? It wasn't that bad!"

At that very moment, a lone man stood in the dark, seedy section of Baticul. Which totally exists. Only it really didn't look very dark or seedy in the middle of the day. As a matter of fact, it happened to just be a random alleyway in the normal section of Baticul that had been the closest he could come to finding a dark, seedy part of the city. It was close enough, by his judgment. The slight grin on his face was the only indicator of the nefarious plots that constantly ran through his mind (Likely the result of Megalodiaboliphrenia. Unfortunately, the disease would not be officially discovered for some 50 years, and medication would not be developed until years after that), one of which was already underway. As he stood, looking slightly silly grinning for no apparent reason, and, in doing so, frightening the passersby, several sets of footsteps approached from behind him. He didn't bother turning to face the newcomers; he knew them already. He was the one who had summoned them, after all.

"Everything is prepared. By which I mean… we're here, because you didn't ask us to prepare anything."

"Excellent." The man stroked his goatee as he turned to face the five warriors behind him.

"Commandant, what is this all about?" the question came from a young girl with pink hair, looking entirely out of her element, though the same could not be said for the giant ligers waiting by each of her shoulders. Except that they were in an alley in the middle of a city. …It was a pretty wide alley. More of a street, really.

"Yes, I must confess, I'm rather interested as well. You don't contact us for months, and now this all of a sudden, on Christmas Eve, no less," a decidedly girly man's voice came from the decidedly girly man who was practically lounging upon a floating chair that hovered a few inches off of the ground. The lack of masculinity was not helped in the slightest by the ridiculous collar of his shirt, which came up to form a sort of pink flower shape behind his head.

"I'm sure whatever it is, the Commandant has a very good reason for summoning us all here." The woman who spoke had blonde hair, which was done into one of the world's single craziest ponytails (only surpassed by the one belonging to the man of whom she was speaking), and was wearing a personal take on the Order of Lorelei's standard brownish robes.

"Who cares? We've already missed our shot at destroying the Score…" growled a gargantuan man with gray hair and a short beard. Long black robes with red accents covered his body, while a ring of enormous claws surrounded his neck, creating a mane-like appearance.

"I hope it involves destroying the world and everything in it," piped in a teenage boy with dark, greenish hair. His outfit was also a take on the Order of Lorelei's standard, with added bands of green.

"No. Our target this time is entirely different. Arietta, Dist, Legretta, Largo, Sync," he called each by name in the order that they had spoken. "I have called you, the Six God Generals Except for Asch, back together again for one purpose and one purpose only. We may have failed to save the world from the Score, but this time we shall be successful! Our mission is clear: we must put an end to the corporations' tyrannical control of Christmas!" This speech was Van Grants at his most eloquent, falling roughly halfway between his most condescending and preachy and his most "I'm going to kill you now, kthx."

"Every Christmas it's the same," he went on without pause. "The corporations decide what's 'in' and 'out,' shamelessly brainwashing the oblivious masses into buying their latest gizmos and gadgets. Right and wrong don't matter to them, their only concern is convincing people to buy their products through whatever means necessary. And I greatly admire that. But they have no respect for the true meaning of Christmas! They care not for who is naughty and who is nice and charge outrageous sums for their wares, forcing inferior 'made in Kimlasca' goods upon those who cannot afford their top-line outsourced products! Their absolute control of the toy market has rendered them all but invincible—they can do as they please with no one to stop them. They control the fate of Christmas, and they are sending it on a downward spiral that will eventually cause Christmas itself to be destroyed, rendering it nothing more than a mere celebration of capitalist ideals of mass consumption!"

"This is why they must be stopped! But to do this we must first attain greater power. To this end, we will have to seek out the place where Christmas Spirit gathers and, using it as a sort of fuel, we shall rise above the corporations as a sleigh may rise above porches and walls, respectively. Our plan culminates tonight, in this very city, at the annual Christmas party of the Fabre family, where Asch and Luke will both be present, along with the others who have defeated us. In once more confronting those who have bested us in the past, we shall prove that, this time, we are just, and we shall overcome, someday! God Generals Except for Asch, we're going to crash that party!" Van announced triumphantly.

"Brilliant!" applauded Legretta as Arietta's ligers roared in approval.

"Do we have to? Can't we destroy existence instead?" Sync whined.

"Jade will be there? Well, in that case we _have _to go!" Dist added.

"Alright then, hands in everybody!" Van shouted. "Even you, Sync and Largo. This has to be a team effort. We're going to show the world that they don't need to rely upon the Corporations to have Christmas, that people are capable of deciding their own Christmas-themed destiny! All together now!"

The six of them (plus Arietta's ligers) formed a ring in the middle of the street, hands laid atop one another. Then, all as one, the God-Generals shouted their motto to the heavens: "The God-Generals NEVER die!" They sealed their ritual, swearing to complete their mission or not-die trying, with a collaborative bout of maniacal laughter.

A little boy walking past pointed at the unique spectacle of six people of various sizes and physics-defying hairstyles laughing maniacally, shouting "Look, Mommy! What are those people doing?"

"They're crazy. Just keep walking," his mother muttered, a phrase which rapidly caught on like the latest anime-based trading card game, going on to become a mantra of those in the vicinity for about three or four minutes and then being completely forgotten. Okay, so… when I said "dark, seedy alley" I actually meant "Baticul's main square," which, incidentally, isn't square-shaped. Baticul's engineers, foreseeing an influx of villainous villains had, in fact, designed the entire city without so much as a single dark alley in which to conduct evil plotting. Go figure.

This state of affairs would come to make quite a lot of evil masterminds very upset, to the point where several refused to do business with Kimlasca at all, on the principle of the thing. These dissenters were eventually mollified, as the evildoer shortage became more severe, by the decision to carve a single alley into an existing generic building in Baticul, which henceforth became a major tourist attraction, where, for the right price, out-of-towners could watch Grisgar the Gallish plot the complete and utter downfall of modern society every Tuesday night. Refreshments were served and the alley was later turned into a dinner theater, entitled "The Dark Alley," by a building namer who would go on to be pushed out of "The Window That is Really Quite High Up, I Mean, Just Take a Look out There at All those Little People Waaaaay Down There… Boy, Would it Suck to Fall out of This Thing," shortly after the ribbon cutting ceremony. The world would come to deeply regret the loss of his unique artistic naming abilities for about 7 and a half seconds and then get on with the story. One. Two. Three. Oh, hell with it, this is boring.

"Um… Anise… There's something I've been meaning to ask you…" Ion said slowly, without quite looking his former guardian in the face. They were presently taking a stroll around Baticul before getting ready for the party, since it had been some time since their last visit, and since the last time they had seen each other, for that matter.

"What?" she asked. Admittedly she had numerous questions of her own for the Fon Master, at least several of which should probably never see the light of day, but she was sincerely happy to even be in a situation where he _could_ ask her something. Thus she was too busy being on the lookout for what was inevitably going to go wrong and plunge everything back into chaos and despair (as tended to happen, in her experience) to ask her own questions.

"Well… um… there's no easy way to say this, Anise but… Who is this, and why does he look exactly like me? And why is he wearing my clothes?" Ion pointed to the third member of their group, who had been silently following Anise since long before this very moment. Really.

"Oh, um…" Anise faltered for a second, her gaze wavering back and forth between the two identical people at her sides, unable to stop herself from thinking 'I guess you could say he's really beside himself,' despite her best efforts. "This… this isn't what it looks like…" she started.

"Then what is it?" Ion barked uncharacteristically.

"Well… you remember how you were a replica of the original Ion who apparently hated kittens and ate babies, and there were actually seven of you but they decided to throw the others into a volcano?" she asked. "Only, I guess they missed when they were throwing in Sync. Well… turns out they were really, really bad at dropping people into volcanoes. This is Florian. He's… um… you, pretty much…"

"I… I can't believe this," Ion turned to face away from Anise, head bowed. "I'm in a 4Kids-induced coma for a few months and you just _replace_ me?"

"No, really, it wasn't like that!" Anise flailed her arms wildly as she tried to explain.

"That's how it looks to me!"

"But—!" Anise protested

"That's right!" Florian chimed in angrily. "Anise is with _me_ now, so back off!" he yelled at Ion. There was a sharp, cracking sound, audible throughout the world, that was roughly equivalent to the universe shattering, and then everything resumed as normal. Except bananas were suddenly relatively more orange.

"What? Florian, that's not—" Anise tired to argue with him, only to be interrupted by Ion.

"Anise, you have to decide! Which of us do you want to be with?" he demanded.

"But… but…" for a moment, the dark-haired girl paused. At last, she shook her head, muttering, "No, no, there's no such thing as a canonical threesome… Hm…" her thoughts were interrupted by two thuds, which she noticed, upon turning around, had come from both Ion and Florian fainting simultaneously, bleeding profusely through their respective noses. Though to be perfectly honest, it would have been difficult or impossible to tell if they were bleeding through each other's noses, it just seems highly unlikely, under the circumstances.

_Well, so much for that, _she thought with a shrug, staring at the unconscious Ion replicas. Tapping a finger to her chin, she called "Oh, Sync…" As she spoke, both Ion and Florian's unconscious bodies began twitching compulsively, as though through some innate rejection of her words. "Yeah, you guys are right," she decided. "He's too emo. Also too dead." And with that, she continued skipping on her way, humming a nostalgic tune and resisting the sudden, inexplicable urge to go look through a photo album.

Duke Fabre had had a busy day. First Osgar the Ostentatious had petitioned the king for more dark alleyways in which to properly conduct acts of villainy via his usual cannon bombardment with slips of paper tied to the projectiles, and then, after they had cleaned that up, there were protestors from the People for the Ethical Treatment of Anyone's Rights and against Discrimination who had threatened to blow up the nearest ghetto if the Kimlascan royal family, as the representatives of the people, didn't cease celebrating Christmas. After P.E.T.A.R.D.'s device for hoisting said explosives was rendered inoperable by the Kimlascan military they still managed to put up a fierce legal battle defending their actions, which was doubly impressive since there was no court system in the first place.

Of course, these were fairly run of the mill minor crises, which happened on a roughly weekly basis, and only partly contributed to the Duke's particularly nasty day. Enduring the attacks of Osgar and de-hoisting P.E.T.A.R.D. were more or less second nature by now, being among the official response to the actions of Baticul's Rogue's Gallery of assorted radicals, which included such notable figures as Sub-Marine Man, who every Wednesday demanded that the city be relocated underwater so he could make use of his ability to say things to fish and have them ignore him. No, the various Eco-Terrorists and Anti-Violence Death Squads didn't bother the Duke so much anymore. The economy, however, was another matter entirely.

Whether it was men who bore some resemblance to Ant-Lions smuggling goods into and out of the city illegally, or the terrible ravages of the fact that the city didn't produce anything at all, Baticul faced a constant stream of economic issues that seemingly could not be resolved. So when the Duke and the King were informed of the tinsel shortage, on Christmas Eve Day, no less, they knew right then that they were in for a long four or five hours of actually doing something.

As one might imagine, after five hours of signing new tinsel regulations into law the Duke's hand was extremely cramped, and then he had to redo half of them when the Advocates of Restoring Greenery and Herbs tossed a firebomb into his office. So it was with weary steps and a heavy hand that he trudged the 50 yards back to his house. He was just about to open the door, when suddenly he saw a blur of motion to his right.

"It's a trap!" a familiar voice shouted, and a figure clad in white tackled the middle-aged man out of the way.

"No, Luke, it's a door." For some reason he was reminded of when Luke had first suffered amnesia. It had really been a very, very good decision to keep him locked in the mansion for a few years following that… "Can you drop your paranoia at least long enough to let me get inside?"

"No, you don't understand!"

"Then can you let me get up?" Duke Fabre groaned inwardly. The fall had done little to improve his mood, or his trick knee, for that matter, a memento of a time when he had not been quite so used to being attacked by A.R.G.H.

"Oh, right. Sorry, father," the red-haired teenager picked himself up, offering the Duke a hand, which he accepted.

"Now what was so important that you had to tackle me to stop me from going inside our own house?" Duke Fabre demanded impatiently. It was really not his day.

"Well, it's all set up for the party a-,"

"The party? Oh, right! Well, that's good isn't it? Let me see-"

"No!" Luke shouted. "You don't understand, Jade was the one who did the decorations…"

"Jade?!" Duke Fabre exclaimed. He felt as though he had been smacked in the face with a damp Planetary Fonic Arte. Which was a very strange feeling. Also a very unpleasant one. "J-J-J-Jade Curtiss? You let JADE CURTIS decorate our house?!" he bellowed.

"I don't know how it happened!" Luke said helplessly. "It's not like we decided to put him in charge of it or anything! It's as if it were beyond my or anyone else's control…"

"Jade Curtiss…" the Duke groaned. He was beginning to feel faint. "I-I need to sit down at the head of an unnecessarily large table…" he murmured to himself.

"But, father, your unnecessarily large table is… inside…"

Duke Fabre merely blinked for a moment, then, his eyes strangely unfocused, he snapped his fingers, and an instant later a servant was at his side.

"Yes, sir?"

"Generic servant, I am about to faint. Catch me."

"Of course, sir." And with that, Duke Fabre passed out, leaving his son to face the unknown horrors of the Necromancer's taste in party decorations alone. Which tended to be his normal course of action in regards to unknown horrors, but this particular case was especially unknown and especially horrifying. Well, being that it was, in fact, especially unknown, it may or may not have actually been horrifying, but based on relatively well-founded conjecture it probably was. In that respect it actually was not any more unknown than any other unknown horror, it was just unknown. And probably horrifying.

Luke sighed. It wasn't like he expected anything different, his father did have a thing about abandoning him in the face of unknown horrors. And generally being kind of an ass, for that matter. _Oh well. You can't choose your family… or the family of the person you're a clone of, for that matter, _he thought.

"Master!" a nearby, high-pitched voice called, and Luke turned only to have a small blue and white creature slam into his face.

"Mieu. Get off of me."

"Mieuuuu…" The cheagle hopped back to the ground.

"Hey, Luke. Am I… early?" Tear asked, looking around to see that no one else had arrived.

"A little…" he answered, glancing up at her. She looked… looked… no different from usual. Not that that meant anything remotely negative.

"Oh. Well… I… got you something," she began fumbling around her nonexistent pockets.

"Ah!" Luke exclaimed. Like everything else, the gift he had gotten for Tear was inside, probably guarded by some sort of space hydra, if Jade's normal behavior was prevailing. Seeing her stare at him questioningly, he went on "I actually got you something, too, but it's…" he pointed towards the door. "So um… maybe we should wait…?"

"Sure…" she replied slowly.

"Awwwwww!" Mieu shouted. "But Master! Tear was just saying that she wanted to-,"

"That-that's enough, Mieu!" Tear interrupted, a red tinge starting to creep into her cheeks.

"But you were just saying you thought that Ma-," whatever he had been about to say was cut off as Tear, her face now a physics-defying shade of crimson, clamped her hand over his mouth. Luke looked back and forth between the two, unable to keep from wondering what exactly she had been saying to Mieu.

"On the count of three: One, two, three," a chorus of 'Awwwww's suddenly came from all directions. Luke and Tear simultaneously tensed, much in the way that a startled cat will. Luke's ponytail even arced a bit.

"Thank you, thank you, I'll be here all week. Should you ever need to be embarrassed there will be absolutely no need to call me." Jade strolled casually out into the open, one arm held before him like a Shakespearian actor. "For wherever there is a young couple in an awkward situation, I will be there, and wherever there is a young couple not in an awkward situation, I will be there creating one, and wherever none of those things are present I will be there too, the cynical voice which haunts the corridors, seeking out hilarity and embarrassment wherever they may be found. For, who know what intense awkwardness lies within the hearts of men? The Necromancer knows, of course, and chases it down, thrusting it into the light for your amusement. My good people! Concern yourselves not for me, for my work, nay, my art is its own reward, and art for art's sake is the truest art there is," with an extravagant gesture he swept his hand towards the heavens. "Plus it's extremely entertaining," he added, letting the raised arm fall back to his side.

"Are you… finished?" Luke asked.

"Quite."

"Okay then."

And with that, everyone else emerged as well, rather less dramatically. The six members of the main group and Asch were thus reunited, all looking remarkably unchanged for the wear.

"Wait a minute…" Luke said, "None of you changed for the party?"

"Hey! Tokunaga's wearing a bowtie, thank you very much!" Anise turned to show the doll strapped to her back to the others.

"Um… right… should we have?" Guy asked.

"Well, if no one was going to change, what did we spend the past three hours not doing anything for?!" Luke shouted.

"… Things," came the universal response.

"I… see…" Luke said.

"Speaking of which," Guy wondered aloud, "Tear, you're still in your Order of Lorelei robes even though you're about as off-duty as it is possible to be…"

"Yeah, why don't you ever wear anything else?" Luke asked.

"Well, I… um…" she stuttered. "Anise is wearing her Order outfit too!"

"Yeah, but hers is pink," Guy argued.

"What does that have to do with anything? Anise always wears pink!"

"Yours is _brown._"

"But!"

"Even Anise shows more skin that you do!" Luke added, causing several of the bystanders to smack their foreheads.

"Hey! It's not my fault Japan's Lolita obsession only extends so far!" Anise pouted.

"It's the middle of winter!" Tear thrust one arm towards the Christmas decorations all around them.

"But it's not cold," Luke pointed out.

"Modest clothes suit me best…" she offered uncertainly.

"The fanart begs to differ."

"But I—! But that doesn't—!"

"Ding ding! We have a winner!" Jade interrupted cheerfully. "Congratulations, Luke, you've beaten Tear in an argument. What are you going to do now?"

"I'm going to… the party…" Luke said. "Where have you been?"

"Well, at least it's no longer a complete shutout…" Guy muttered.

"Psht. Yeah, that's not gonna help any. You totally owe me 200 Gald," Anise said. Turning around, she added, "Oh, hey, it's Ion! …s."

"Hi, Anise!" they called simultaneously, waving as they walked up to join the others.

"Awww," the group 'awww'ed at Jade's direction.

"Aww!" Anise repeated for emphasis. "That was great, can you do it again?"

"Do what aga—" Ion and Florian paused mid-sentence to glare at each other.

"Well, whatever. You guys are done fighting over me, right?"

"Yep!" they said happily.

"We talked about it, and decided it was obvious that you liked me the best," the right Ion said.

"What? We agreed that she liked _me_!" the one on the left shouted.

"We did no such thing!" the right Ion fired back.

"See? Your memory is faulty, clearly I'm the better choice!"

"No, you're just a liar! Hardly a desirable quality."

"Wait, wait, I'm confused…" Guy said, scratching his chin. "Which one of them is which?"

"What do you mean?" Anise turned her head away from the quarrelling replicas.

"What do I mean? Anise, they're identical! You mean you can tell them apart?" the Hodite exclaimed.

"Sure I can. See, this one's Ion," she pointed at one of the two robed figures, who were busy circling each other because this scene wouldn't have been quite confusing enough otherwise. "And this is Florian," she pointed at the other.

"How… how did you _do _that?" Luke asked in amazement.

"The heart can always tell the difference," she said, a dreamy look in her eyes. "Also Ion smells like licorice."

"He _what?_" the group collectively gasped. Except for Jade, who didn't so much gasp as give a thoughtful nod and then laugh maniacally.

"Oh, well, he kept getting lost places, so a while ago I bought this weird licorice perfume I found and sprayed him with it so I could find him, and the smell hasn't come out yet," Anise explained nonchalantly, leaving the group to blink in surprise.

"So… basically you're the only one who can tell them apart?" Guy asked.

"I guess so…"

"It gets worse!" Jade cried, voice full of despair. "How will we take bets on them now? I can't offer proper rates if we can't tell them apart!"

"And you're going to go around… sniffing them for this to work?" Guy went on, ignoring Jade completely.

"Hm… yeah…" she said with a sigh. "That is sort of a concept for a fic unto itself, isn't it? I know!" she snapped her fingers, and, running over to the two arguing boys, thrust them apart, rummaging around her nonexistent pockets for something. "Ahah!" she exclaimed, apparently finding whatever she was looking for, wherever she was looking for it. "There we go." With a flourish, she turned, revealing one of the Ions, who now had a pink ribbon tied into a bow atop his head. "Florian's the one with the ribbon."

The rest of the group maintained their stunned silence.

"You look… cute…" Tear finally said.

"Really?" Florian's eyes sparkled brightly with the aid of an effect known only to anime.

"Uh…huh…" She glanced around at everyone else, who had yet to speak, or move, even.

"See? _I _look cute!" Florian stuck his tongue out at his counterpart.

"Hey, guys, don't fight. This is a party!" Anise said before Ion could respond.

"Alright, if you don't want me to, I won't, Anise," Ion said with a smile.

"Hey! That's no fair! I want to not fight for Anise, too!" Florian complained.

"Well, maybe you shouldn't have tried to steal her from me with such underhanded tricks," Ion said.

"Steal her? Who said she was even yours in the first place?"

"Everyone!" Ion gestured at the others, then at the author, and then at the audience, for good measure. "Plus I was here first!"

"Well, clearly you didn't do a very good job of it, because she replaced you with me."

"I was _dead._ I heroically sacrificed myself!"

"You read some writing off of a bunch of rocks," Florian said dryly.

"I saved Tear's life!"

"Yeah, I'll bet that went over really well with _Anise_."

"Well, you were just a huge letdown to her anyway. You couldn't actually replace me, and everyone knew it from the beginning."

"Well, at least I didn't _die _on her, sending her into a spiraling depression!"

"Would you like to try?"

"Um… Anise…" Tear whispered. "Maybe you'd better pick one before they hurt each other. I mean, you actually love Ion, right?"

"Well, yeah, but I don't want to hurt Florian's feelings… Besides, do you have any idea what kind of market there is for things with twins? I mean just look at how they did that entrance!" she said, bursting with excitement. "I can see it now!" her hands framed some imaginary title box in the air above her head. ""The Adventures of Florian and Ion!" "Full Tiny Room at the Order of Lorelei Headquarters!" "Passport to Grand Chokmah!" Then they'll make a couple of bad series that only last one season, just to keep everyone guessing as to whether they're still any good, and then they'll explode back into the mainstream as 'The Wonder Replicas,' with their amazing abilities to read the Seventh Fonstone and… um… act in really bad children's plays! It's a flawless marketing strategy!"

"Of course," Guy groaned.

"I don't see what the big deal is," Asch and Luke muttered in perfect harmony, simultaneously folding their respective arms. Realizing what they had just done, they glanced at each other in horror, then at Anise, whose head had perked up at the sound of their voices. They began backing away as Anise steadily advanced, when suddenly a loud shout rang out across the courtyard.

"Everyone, stop!" They did, for reasons entirely likely to become clear in just a moment.

"Jade, give me a beat!" the voice commanded.

"What?" Jade asked in a rare moment of surprise.

"That's an order."

The Necromancer sighed, and, putting a nearly closed fist to his mouth and cupping it with his other hand, proceeded to "give the newcomer a beat."

At that moment, Emperor Peony of Malkuth came walking, or rather, strutting into view, arms spread far out to either side. A backwards baseball cap for the Malkuth Mandragoras adorned his head, and his entire outfit would have shone brightly with 'bling' were it not night.

"Emperor Peony in the hiiiz-ouse!!" one of the guards that followed the eccentric overlord shouted. The look on his face was the vacant, slightly twitchy stare of a man who desperately wanted to throttle himself but was all too aware that his hands would relax as soon as he lost consciousness.

The group settled upon their typical response of stunned silence, accompanied with lots of staring as their eyes dove from the supreme ruler of half the world's numerous gold medallions, to the 17 rings upon his fingers, to the sunglasses which stubbornly sat on his nose in spite of the fact that the sun was nowhere to be found.

"Now," Peony began, looking the gang up and down, "what's all this I hear about people not changing for a party and not showing enough skin?" Seeing that everyone was still too stunned to answer, he continued, "Well, fortunately, I foresaw this sequence of events, and took the liberty of personally designing and commissioning outfits for all of you to wear tonight." He snapped his fingers, and another guard approached, holding up a briefcase, which he allowed to fall open, revealing the aforementioned garments.

To describe the previously named aforementioned garments is, sadly, impossible. Any attempt to do so would instantly make it utterly impossible for anyone under 18 to read this fanfic, and would probably cause the author to pop out of existence, since he himself is under 18. Furthermore, a massive inquiry into the fic itself as well as the possibility of a person reproducing said garments would have to occur, and would likely stop this fic from ever appearing to the public.

So obscene and potentially offensive were the outfits that even an indirect attempt to describe them would run the risk of massive nasal hemorrhaging and could potential lead to explosion of the heart or other important organs, specifically the liver if you are of Roman ancestry. Second-hand, and even third-hand accounts were thus ruled out as potentially dangerous. Therefore, this author was left with no recourse but to not describe the outfits at all, save to offer an explanation as to why they could not be described. However, if he were to describe them, the former college roommate of a friend of the second cousin of the father of someone who saw these garments has been quoted as saying that there may have been black leather involved in some way, shape, or form. This is, of course, wholly unsubstantiated.

The group's reactions to the outfits were rather strikingly negative, with the sole exception of Anise, whose reaction was also considered too obscene for this fanfic. It shall, however, be noted that all Ion replicas present at the time collapsed and were rendered unconscious.

"Is this going to be a regular occurrence?" Anise wondered aloud, tapping a finger to her chin.

"Nah. The author only cops out on the reader once in a while," Luke answered.

"I just don't understand…" Peony muttered. "After all that hard work… for six lightning bolts to suddenly strike and destroy all of the clothes I made for you…"

Jade cleared his throat. "It's a mystery, Your Majesty. Perhaps a sign that you should give up on designing clothing…"

"Pah. If the universe wants me to stop designing outfits for you guys, it'll have to do a lot better than setting one of my minions on fire." Jade winced as Peony spoke, but the emperor seemed not to notice.

"That's not what I'm talking about!" Anise shouted in annoyance. "I mean this thing with Ion fainting! It makes things slightly complicated, you know."

"Uh… right…" Luke stammered. Behind him, a chorus of innocent whistles came together into a symphony of people trying to not get involved in the conversation.

"I mean, how am I supposed to—" she started

"Um… Anise, are you sure that you… really want to be…"

"Well, I guess I could always…"

"Anise—" Luke tried again, unsuccessfully.

"There is all that stuff on the internet, I suppose, but that just—"

"Anise! Jeez!" Luke finally shouted. "Where does this _come _from? God!"

"What part of 'I was raised in the main headquarters of a religious order' did you miss?" the pink clad girl demanded, hands on her hips.

"Um… Anise… you know… some people would find that statement incredibly offensive…" Luke said slowly.

"Yeah, and?"

"Good point."

"Hey, Asch," Guy whispered to the red-haired man, "do you ever feel as though you've been forgotten by the universe?" Asch just glared at him. "Oh… right… Sorry about that."

"Hey, Asch," Natalia called from behind the two, "do you ever feel as though—"

Meanwhile, the rest of the group was slowly making its way towards the door with the same reluctance and even fear often exhibited by congressmen forced to take the stand in a court of law.

"Well, throwing money at it didn't work…" Luke sighed, stepping over the gold coins which were now strewn about the entrance to his house. "I guess there's nothing for it but to actually go inside."

Swallowing nervously, Luke pressed one hand up against the door and gently pushed on it. The door swung open with an ancient creaking sound that it had definitely not made earlier that morning. Light from an unknown source instantly illuminating the entire room, pouring out through the open door and momentarily blinding the group. As their eyes slowly adjusted, the fearful party goers began to make out the fate which was in store for them.

What awaits our heroes within beyond the door to Luke's house? Action? Danger? The battered remains of the Fourth Wall? Horribly long and mostly irrelevant tangents? Gandalf the Grey and Gandalf the White and Monty Python and the Holy Grail's Black Knight? The suspense will FORCE you to read the next installment of "How the God Generals Replicated Christmas!" Please?

Luke: Hey, I'm everyone's favorite main character who the story centers on from Tales of the Abyss, Luke fon Fabre, here to explain why the ending is complete BS.

Anise: And I'm everyone's favorite borderline lolita girl from Tales of the Abyss, Anise Tatlin!

Luke: Wait, what about Arie—hang on, Anise, why are you even here? I'm supposed to be doing an episode preview-type thing!

Anise: Silly Luke, every episode preview-type thing needs a second character who interrupts the first! Disgaea did it, now we have to, too. Just pretend I'm not here.

Luke: Right… well, the author set out to write an Epic Christmas Epic of Epic Epicness.

Anise: Little did he know that his initial estimate of 60 pages total would be slightly off… as in he passed it a little while ago and still isn't that near to the end.

Luke: So under advisement from… everyone ever, he decided not to put it up as one monstrous chapter that would take hours just to read even though it's mostly dialogue. And that's—

Anise: That's why the ending just sort of trails off!

Luke: … You know, I really think I could do this by myself…

Anise: Luke! You're supposed to ignore me! That's it, I'm taking over.

Luke: Wait, you can't just decide to be the primary episode preview person like tha—

Anise: The party finally begins! But will anyone be left alive to enjoy it after Jade's decorations? Probably, since the author has revived every single dead character so far.

Luke: What is Van's—

Anise: master plan for the future of Christmas?

Luke: Anise! That was—

Anise: Next time, "How the God Generals Replicated Christmas," Episode 2: Its name is Gundam!

Luke: No, wait, that's not the right title, it's—

Anise: I mean, um… Beginning of the Party, End of Not Having Begun the Party Yet. Really.

Luke: What ki—

Anise: What kind of Christmas do _you _believe in?

Luke: Yeah, I can't work like this, I'm going back to my hou… God damn it.

_Closing Note: Well, thanks for reading the first installment of How the God Generals Replicated Christmas. This one was good for random tangents and whatnot, but as for general craziness, this is just the tip of the iceberg, so I hope to see you (so to speak) in future installments. Hopefully they'll be relatively quick in coming, but I want to keep some sort of buffer between what I've posted and where I am in writing, so I may decide not to upload for a little while (like a week, I mean, not like months) if I'm still stuck not writing very fast. And with that, on to the various obscure references that appeared in this chapter. Sorry, but they're not completely in order, I assume the interested will be able to figure it out, though._

_The Power of Pikachu and the Japanese: This one I actually had to look up, since I knew from the beginning that Ion was alive thanks to a timely 4Kids dub. As it happens, I couldn't find an English TotA voice actor who also worked with 4Kids, but Ion's Japanese seiyuu also plays Pikachu in the Pokemon anime, among other things, so there you go._

_The dead don't come to Christmas parties except in really bad horror films: I couldn't resist a stab at Black Christmas. I mean, really, who wants to watch a Christmas-themed horror movie? I know the genre has exhausted a lot of its tricks by now, but as a Christmas-enthused Jew I can't help but feel that this slightly cheapens what's left of Christmas Spirit™._

_Luke's weird quoting (Starting from "All we are is dust in the wind"): Yeah… so those were song quotes from "Dust in the Wind," the second verse of "Suicide is Painless," and "Live Like you were Dying," respectively, because I loved how they sort of meshed together in a nonsensical but amusing way. Also the fact that the first two are like… ANGST and the last one isn't. I also sort of have something against "Live Like you were Dying" because the radio station we always had on back in 8__th__ grade when everyone took Art automatically played it like, every single day, it seemed. Though the constant playing of "We Didn't Start the Fire" so we could write new lyrics to it in 7__th__ grade music was worse by far… Anyway…_

_Anise Humming and wanting to look through a photo album: This is a play off of the quintessential soap opera, "All my Children." Which I know nothing else about, just that the opening theme was always set to pictures from a photo album, which changed over the various seasons. Obviously this is a reference to the fact that the prior scene with the FlorianxAnisexIon love triangle was a soap opera parody, if you missed that somehow (the coma and evil twin thing should have tipped you off)._

"_It's a trap!": Yeah… this is from the crazy guy in Star Wars, and for some reason is like, a giant meme. If you didn't know this… I have no idea where you've been living for… like, years._

_Jade being in charge of decorations and no one knowing why: Yeah, because I loved the skits you get if you have characters fight in their swimsuits (and a few other outfits) where they more or less break the fourth wall, what with you, the player, being able to dictate their outfits at any given point. So this is an homage to that, in case you also somehow missed that._

_Duke Fabre's reaction to unknown horrors: Seriously. What. An. Ass. I know this was canonically explained by him not wanting to get attached to a son who was meant to die, but I really think he's just like that._

"_I guess you could say he's really beside himself": This is an altered-person take on a line form Weird Al's "I think I'm a clone now." Puns for the win._

_The Necromancer Knows: A reference to "The Shadow" something else I know nothing about except for the one bit I referenced. The (rather well-known) original line is: "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!"_

_Anise's Marketing Plan for the Ions: The fake show titles are references to various things done by Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, specifically "The Adventures of Mary-Kate & Ashley," "Full House," "Passport to Paris," and then also the Wonder Twins, who I don't think ever had their own show, but whatever._

_Ion smelling like Licorice: This is a joke off of the fact that Anise is the name of the plant which is used to make licorice. In case you're interested, imagine a slightly weak licorice taste and apply it to celery, and you've more or less got what the stalks taste like, didn't actually eat part of the bulb raw when we bought one (yes, I'm that much of a nerd that I bought a food product based on a game character. It was part of the gag graduation gift I gave to the friend who helped me brainstorm this fic, along with some mint and sage). So anyway… yeah, you can read into that what you will._

_Explosion of the Liver if you are of Roman Ancestry: This is based on the idea that the Romans believed that the liver was the source of sexual desire, etc. as shown in the story of Tityus, who was punished for his attempt to rape Leto by having vultures devour his liver. Or at least, that's my present understanding of it, I could be mistaken._

_Megalodiaboliphrenia: I know I joke about this, but it's really no laughing matter. Megalodiaboliphrenia affects over 500 video game villains each year, causing them to attempt to destroy and/or take over an assortment of worlds. Scientists as of yet are unsure if they are born with it or can contract it through some sort of traumatic experience that makes them decide that the world is better off under their rule or somesuch. If you know someone with Megalodiaboliphrenia, please call the official Megalodiaboliphrenia hotline at 1-800-OHMYGODHE'SGOTADOOMSDAYWEAPON. They'll send a team of ragtag heroes to kill the afflicted as well as all assorted henchmen, mini-bosses, and second, third, even fourth forms. Together, we can make a difference._

_And, as a special bonus for anyone interested enough or bored enough to read all of that, we here at… me… are proud to present, the list of rejected titles for this fic! Yay!_

_Crack for Christmas: This one was the working title before we came up with one I really liked (that Julia didn't threaten to kill me if I used, see below), ie How the God Generals Replicated Christmas (the full file is still named this, actually). This was in addition to the words "This Space for Rent by a Real Title. Non-Puns need not apply."_

_Baby, It's Auldrant Outside: Technically it was Auldrant inside, too, so, you know._

_I'll be Fon for the Holidays: This was the one Julia threatened to kill me over. I kind of liked it, but you know ((shrugs))._

_The Twelve Days of Fonmas: Yeah… didn't really consider this one…_

_A Christmas Grand Fonic Hymn: Once again, thought about it, decided it was kind of… meh._

_Others that I may or may not be coming up with on the spot to make this segment more entertaining include:  
Eight Crazy Replicas  
Christmas with the Replicas  
I'm Dreaming of a Replicated Christmas (Alternatively "I'm Dreaming of an Auldrantinese Christmas")  
Miracle in that place in the middle of Baticul where there's really nothing interesting  
Deck the Halls With Deadly Traps  
Replicas in Eldrantland_

_More to come later? I have absolutely no idea. Anyway, I plan on updating again before too long, what with actually having the ability to do so, so until then, Merry August to all, and to all a good "Oh crap I have to go back to school soon."_


	2. Soaring Through the Heavens, it's

_Author Note: You'll never believe it! I was about to update this fic waaay back in August, and suddenly I fell into a coma! And when I came out of the coma I had amnesia, and I could only write the one Kim Possible fanfic and also… things for school and…_

_Yeah, okay, my enthusiasm for this fic died. So it goes. (Does my Kurt Vonegut quote make up for my writing-based delinquency in any way…?) Consequently I didn't update for three months even though I still have a good 20+ pages beyond this chapter. To be fair I spent a considerable amount of time making… relatively few changes to this thing, but it took a while just because of the size of the project of checking everything over. Perhaps an indication that this chapter needs to be shorter but… no one said you couldn't read it in segments. That's how I wrote it… uh… yeah, I'm gonna stop talking now._

_But no, seriously, apologies. I know chapters of this length are a bit awkward and daunting. I hope you'll stick with it anyway, because… well, because I want readers, but also because I think, or hope anyway, that you'll enjoy it, and I'd hate for you to miss out on that just because it seemed like too many (thousands of) words. Yeah alright, so it's mostly just the first one there, but the second sounded good, no?_

_And so my usual policy is in effect. That being… please, please, please review? I actually just like knowing people genuinely read the fic instead of taking one look at the length of my sentences and running screaming for the hills. Plus it's interesting to hear what different people liked the most out of it. I'll even try to respond to all or most of my reviews, since it seems like the cool people (in the KP fandom, anyway) do that, though I never really know what to say._

_So with that, here's the second chapter of "How the God Generals Replicated Christmas." Enjoy! _

**How the God Generals Replicated Christmas **

**Chapter 2: In Which The Party Does Actually Begin and Chaos Ensues.  
In Which Someone Says, "The God Generals Never Die!"  
In Which There Are Probably Letters and Also Words.  
(Go Spoilers.)**

'Twas the night before Christmas and all through the manor, traps lay in wait at the whims of their planner. The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, in hopes that some innocent victims soon would be there. Live Filifolia writhed on the wall, and together with blades they decked out the hall. And blood-dripping mistletoe and spikes on the floor did add their own horrors to the party's décor.

In stunned silence they stared and they gazed and they gaped at the room's twisted, disfigured, transmogrified shape. And Jade all the while wore a sinister grin as he brushed past the others and calmly went in. From across the gateway he turned and he said, "Well, it's a party, come on, go ahead!" But the others just stood there, agape and aghast and immersed in a silence determined to last.

"Luke, would you stop narrating already?" Tear shouted, causing the rhyme scheme to come crashing down around them like some sort of aerial city that falls apart dramatically as soon as its evil master is killed but not really.

"Hey, I have to talk as I write things down! Otherwise the audience would have no idea what I was writing!" he fired back, slamming shut the small book he had been writing in.

"What's the matter, Tear?" Natalia said. For once.

"Yeah, it's not like you to fly off the handle like that…" Guy added. "Besides, I thought it was pretty good for adlibbing."

"Well I… I…" Tear stammered under the rest of the group's scrutiny. "I had bad experiences with Christmas poems when I was little, okay?"

"Ah, yes, Van's infamous 'How the Capitalists Stole Christmas.'" Asch shuddered, "The bit about hurling puppies out of windows into pools of acid filled with salt-covered spikes is partly responsible for my permanent scowl."

"Oh, Asch…" Natalia put a comforting hand on his shoulder before the story shifted focus back to getting the characters into the party before_ another_ twenty pages had elapsed.

"Well, all rhyming tales of Christmas death and destruction aside, let's go have a party!" Luke cried, and dashed inside, only to slip on a carefully placed orangish banana peel, narrowly avoiding being impaled on one the various swords which still hung about the room, all of them having been painted bright red for the occasion. Incidentally, the new paint job did little to make the weapons seem more in the spirit of the holiday, but that's neither here nor there. "I hate you, Jade," he added from where he had collapsed in a heap on the floor.

Jade simply nodded, as if acknowledging a compliment, and gestured for the others to enter the room.

Somehow the wall between the entrance hall to Fabre Manor and the Duke's room with a ridiculously long table had vanished without a trace, as had the aforementioned table, most of the support pillars, and, in fact, several chunks of the roof. In addition, the room itself was, somehow, significantly wider. It shall be noted that Jade later chose not to bill the Fabres for the renovations.

Seeing Luke's fall and subsequent near acquirement of perforations, the rest of the group exercised rather more caution entering the room. Ten minutes later, after they had pried themselves out of an assortment of pits, giant novelty bear traps, iron maidens, stockades, and that hanging bio-thing the Yuuzhan Vong use to torture themselves, which was "borrowed," from a Star Wars props locker (and, in fact, was solely responsible for the creation of anything based on the New Jedi Order books being put on hold indefinitely. You now know who to blame!), they reconvened near the food table, slightly more tired, but otherwise none the worse for the… well, it was nothing a few Healing Circle spells couldn't take care of. Mostly.

"Hate… you… Jade…" the beleaguered gang gasped.

"Aw, I thought considering that we all met in the midst of a war and then spent most of our subsequent time fighting to protect the world that you'd find the death traps had a certain nostalgia…" Jade shrugged. "No accounting for taste, I suppose.

"Anyway, now that we've survived getting into the party, let's get on with actually having the par—" Luke's attempt to take charge of the situation was cut short by a loud bang as the door to the manor was thrust open dramatically.

"Wait! Wait! You can't have a party without me!" A man dressed in black and pink swooped into the room, borne aloft on his hovering tacky chair.

"Dist!" Tear shouted.

"The Shinigami!" Guy added.

"One of the Six God Generals!" Natalia included for anyone in the audience who's really lost at this point and probably has no business reading this fic in the first place.

"Hey! You didn't let me introduce myself!" Dist glared down at them from his vantage point some ten feet in the air. "And I'm a ROSE! Not a Shinigami! Do you see a Death Note? Do I carry a magic sword around and use it to help wayward souls? I mean, yes I make crazy robots, but I've never deliberately blown one of them up, plus I don't have a ponytail, even if it would look absolutely fabulous on me, so I don't see why I have to go by such a dark sounding name. But that's beside the point."

"Damn straight it is! Didn't we kill you? And then you came back to life, and then we killed you again! And…" Luke paused to count on his fingers, "there may have been one or two other times in there, but I'm pretty sure that you're still supposed to be dead!"

"Actually, if you play through the game 27 times and kill Nebilim with the wooden sword on "Super Omega Hard, Like, Seriously, What Are You Doing, You Crazy American?" difficulty it's revealed that I managed to evade my most recent death by turning myself into a cat, but, um…" Dist tapped his chin. "Oh, right. The God Generals _never_ die!"

"Then where are all of the others?" Luke demanded.

"They're off dying so my plan will succeed, of course!" Dist said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "The only time my own evil plans ever seem to work is when they're all dead, or at least presumed such, so."

"Not so fast!" There was a loud blast, and a side door to the room, which had been conveniently ignored by our heroes up until this point, burst inwards. "The God Generals NEVER die!" boomed a voice from within the smoke, which slowly faded away to reveal the remainder of the God Generals Except for Asch standing in the doorway, looking slightly rumpled and trailing bits of fontech.

"Ah! What have you done to my precious Kaiser Dist: Santa Claus Edition?" Dist cried in dismay.

"And how did you get into my house?" Luke said.

"We came through the basement!" Van declared, brushing some gears from his shoulder spikes.

"But we don't have a basement!"

"And besides, isn't Baticul a city that's built on top of itself in what was clearly not a concept ripped directly out of The Lord of the Rings?" Guy asked.

"Gah! What are you people doing in my house? And where'd this stairway come from?" a voice called from behind the God Generals. Van gave a nod to Arietta, who in turn nodded to one of her giant cats, who nodded to the other giant cat, who realized that putting a paw on its nose and saying "green" was probably not going to help due to its inability to speak English, and, with the giant magical mutant cat equivalent of a shrug, headed back through the doorway. A moment later an assortment of screams filled the air.

"Ahem… where were we? Oh, yes. Dist!" Van bellowed. "How dare you try to kill us? That's mutiny on my ship! I'm afraid I'm going to have to punish you."

"But you never yell at Asch when he openly betrays you! Why does he get special treatment?" Dist said, throwing his hands up in protest.

"Because he's already emo enough. As it stands, you're far too happy to be in this group. I mean, you've got, like, one grudge against a guy who you're clearly completely infatuated with. The rest of us HATE THE WORLD. I'm afraid this simply cannot continue. Dist, I'm revoking your chair privileges."

"No! Don't take my cool floating chair! It pulls together the campness of my whole look! Without it I am nothing, just another mad scientist with a flower around his head. How will I ever compete with Dr. Drakken? The man's _blue_! I mean, sure I'm blatantly gay, but if I'm not the most ridiculous looking floral-themed mad scientist I may as well just turn in my flower and go work for Gainax!" Dist pleaded, to no avail. Van pressed a switch on a small control, and the chair promptly upended the stereotyped engineer, sending him sprawling to the floor, and glided back out of the room. "Aw…" Dist moaned, face still planted in what was evidently some sort of torture device designed for extracting the extremities of its victim through a rather ingenious mechanism involving tapioca pudding.

"Can't he just grow a new one?" Natalia whispered to Anise, who shrugged, trying (without much luck) to contain her grin.

"Right, well, um… I think what's probably on everyone's mind right now is… What the Hell are you doing here?" Luke asked his former master turned former enemy turned party crasher.

"The God Generals NEVER—"

"I got that. I meant why did you come here in particular?"

"Ah. Well, you see… we've come to settle the score!" Van thrust one finger towards Luke dramatically.

"We already did that, remember?"

"Who said that was a pun? The 's' wasn't capitalized."

Luke gasped. "You're right!"

"Of course I am!"

"But, then, what's left for us to fight about?"

"The path that this world is upon must be altered before it is too late," Van said solemnly.

"I keep telling you, we've already—"

"No!" the Dorian General interrupted. "I'm not talking about saving the world! This is much more important! I'm talking about saving Christmas!"

"Saving Christmas is more important than saving the world?" Guy interjected.

"It's a Christmas fic. Saving the world is optional," Van shrugged. "Saving Christmas, on the other hand, is pretty much a requirement."

"Ah…"

"For too long Christmas has suffered under the grip of the Corporations, who do with it as they please! We're here to free the world from that influence! If things continue as they are, for millions of children Christmas will lose all meaning! We cannot allow you to stand in our way! Move aside!"

"I won't!" Luke bellowed. "Because I have no idea what you're talking about!"

"You idiot replica!" Asch shouted. "He's here because he's bitter about the Corporations erecting that giant Christmas tree that was so heavy it caused Hod to sink!"

"I-is that true?" Tear said.

"This isn't about revenge for Hod! If there's one thing I've learned from all of this, it's that creating giant floating island/fortresses only invites teams of heroes to come blow them up. It's far too conspicuous. No…" he paused, "This is about the meaning of Christmas! This is about tinsel and mistletoe that isn't soaked in the blood of poor Sheridanian children! It's about holly wreaths and presents that come from the heart rather than some sort of gift card and having seriously ill and/or handicapped children say some variation on the same exact line over and over again when it wasn't all that great the first time! All of the things that will be destroyed if the Corporations in their money-lust continue on their path of using Christmas as a mere marketing scheme! But most of all, it's about that spark that appears in children's eyes on Christmas morning as their little hearts find themselves so easily amused by the acquirement of material possessions! The spark of the Christmas Fonon!"

"Christmas Fonon?" Luke asked. "You mean there are EIGHT kinds? Great, now I have to go test all my attacks again…"

"Luke, the Christmas Fonon is a special classification of the seventh fonon that only occurs when Christmas-themed music is involved," Jade explained with a sigh.

"It's much more than that!" Van persisted. "It's the power of Christmas spirit! I've seen it bring the dead back to life as crazy ghosts in order to teach stingy old men a valuable lesson in a single night!"

"I thought you couldn't bring the dead back to life?" Luke turned to Jade.

"Well… you see… I was using… ah… The circumstances were…" Jade stuttered. Taking a moment to compose himself, he continued. "You see, I was actually trying to animate a body, which worked. It just then tried to kill everyone."

"Sounds like someone's jealous!" Anise sung, a demonic grin on her face.

"I can't believe it, we finally found something that Jade _can't _do!" Luke exclaimed. The two exchanged mid-height fives (it was high for Anise).

"I can't believe you're suggesting that I actually want Professor Nebilim to teach me the True Meaning of Christmas™. Besides, it would take more than my own mortality to scare me into being a nice guy anyway."

"Good point…" Luke and Anise reluctantly conceded, their eyes downcast.

"At any rate, if the Corporations successfully transform Christmas into little more than an exercise in mass consumption, if all the feeling goes out of it, Christmas fonons will dissipate into the Fon Belt! Without the power of the Christmas fonon to induce peace and goodwill on earth, the world will be come an even more emo place than it already is! That'll be great for blogging websites, but what about the rest of us? The sudden increase in emo tears and people cutting themselves will greatly imbalance the amount of liquids in the world, causing the oceans to rise! If that persists, the Radiation Gate and Absorption Gate may become submerged, which will cause the miasma to return!"

"What? How would that work?" Guy demanded, with a bit more interest than horror.

"It's the one fatal flaw in the design of the Sephiroth, salt water makes the whole thing go crazy. We're not sure why."

"… You're totally bullshitting us now, aren't you?" Luke said.

"Yes, well, it would still be really bad," Van said. "Besides, I did say that saving the world was optional, I thought we'd go for it… But I was serious about the emoness. You guys lived through that once, do you want to experience it again?" he demanded. "Christmas is the season of existential crises, after all. The fate of the world's Christmas and mental state shouldn't be decided by shadowy figures hiding away beneath their piles of money in their gilded swimming pools with those cool diamond soap dispensers that hold like 7 different kinds of bubble soap, each of which contains ground up precious minerals! It must be in the hands of someone who cares about Christmas, and about the people! There is only one being who can be trusted with such an awesome responsibility: the aggregate sentience of the Christmas Fonon, the one known as Santa Claus!"

"Santa Claus…?" Guy said.

"Before the Corporations gained control of Christmas, Santa Claus freely roamed the Fon Belt, materializing atop his magic sleigh every Christmas Eve to deliver presents made of Christmas Fonons to the good little boys and girls. But then the Corporations saw the opportunity to make money by selling presents instead and they sealed Santa Claus within one of those giant plastic stars that they use to decorate their over-sized Christmas trees. That's why we're going to take over his task and deliver the presents ourselves!"

"You're going to give presents to every child in the world in just one night? That's madness!" Guy exclaimed. "Well, I mean, I suppose with the Albiore you could just warp from town to town, but how would you afford all of the gifts? And you could never pull it off with a sleigh, even if you had magic reindeer, which I don't think exist… So… yeah, it's pretty much madness," he finished with a definitive nod.

"Madness?" Van's eyes went wide. "THIS IS CHRISTMAS!" Like a rocket his arm shot out, with a package wrapped in red and white paper held in it. "Here you go!" he continued.

"What… is this…?" Guy asked, inspecting the package.

"It's a present! I brought them for all of you!" Van boomed.

"… Why? Aren't you invading our party with the plan to kill us if we go against you?"

"Because it's the polite thing to do!"

"Oh, Commandant, you're so—" Regret said, her eyes aglow with admiration.

"So?" Van interrupted. "What will you do? Will you join with us, and help us to destroy the Corporations, Luke, Asch, the rest of you who can't use hyperresonance?"

"Hey, guys, look at this!" Guy said excitedly as he lifted the lid from his present. "It's a fontech tie!"

"What does it do?" Anise asked, peering at the gaudily colored gift. Guy shrugged and pushed the button in the midst of the yellow star that formed the intersection between the swirling rainbow of stripes that made up the tie. At his touch, the tie went erect, jumped out of his hands, and promptly wriggled its way over to the door, heading outside.

"… Apparently it returns itself to the store…" Guy said. "Oh, right, deciding what we're going to do… Um…"

"We'll never join with you!" Luke shouted, in keeping with a long tradition of good guy-bad guy exchanges. "I mean, nothing against you personally, Master Van, but you have a tendency to come up with these crazy plans involving mass destruction, and… well… we've been down that road once already, right everyone?"

"Yeah, and-afterwards-Luke-had-huge-internal-dilemmas-and-changed-who-he-was-and-I-like-him-this-way-so-I-can't-help-you-either!" Tear said in one breath.

"Huh? Sorry, I couldn't understand that…" Luke turned to face her.

"You… didn't hear any of it?" Tear asked, blushing.

"No… why, what did you say?"

"Um… never mind…"

"Look, I hate the Corporations for what happened to Hod as much as you do, Van," Guy said. "But we can't just take revenge on them like that and usurp their control. What would happen if the world suddenly had no giant corporations to run things from the shadows? We're just not ready to honestly put Emperor Peony and King Ingobert in charge of things. No offense, your highnesses."

"None taken," the two replied, then turned around and walked back into the closets set aside for them to stand in.

"Well, I don't really understand all of this stuff," Anise began with a shrug, "but it seems to me that killing all the people who imprisoned Santa Claus would _really _take the Christmas spirit out of the holiday. Maybe you can just do the delivering presents bit?"

"The entire plan is absurd," Jade scoffed, adjusting his glasses on his nose, causing them to catch the light badassly. "Regardless of who provides the presents, children will still be easily amused by their bright wrapping paper and inane blinking properties. Whether it's the Corporations or Santa Claus who control Christmas, it doesn't matter anymore come December 26th."

"For the good of my kingdom I cannot allow you to randomly distribute presents, knowing that you are a certified evil mastermind and probably also insane," Natalia added.

"Master Van, have you given up on everyone so easily?" Luke asked. "People have the ability to choose their own future! People can overcome the Corporation's power if you give them the chance!"

"The Corporations are evil and must be destroyed!" Van cried. "Can't you understand? They're denying people the freedom to choose how to celebrate Christmas with their promotions and special sales and advertisements! They're brainwashing the masses into doing exactly what they want, to the point where people don't even realize that they're playing into their hands! Christmas must be free of them, free for people to give genuinely thoughtful gifts instead of the latest trends, free for children to enjoy without very much taint of capitalism, free to be a time of celebration for all good people regardless of whether they're rich or poor or have tried to destroy the world for their twisted ideology! That is how Christmas SHOULD BE! Plus the Corporations hate kittens and eat babies."

"So did the original Ion, but we liked—Oh, right, we didn't…" Anise said. "Well, I guess it's okay with me, then. Guys?"

"Eh, whatever," was the general response.

"Great! I'll be outside…" Van took a dramatic pause, "making preparations! We fly at… whenever I finish making Dist's chair into a sleigh." With that, he left, this time through the front door.

Luke sighed. "Um… do you guys want to stay for the party, since you're here anyway?" he asked the God Generals, who gave him a 'yes' in the form of barreling past him into the room, nearly trampling our favorite red-haired hero who wears a long white coat that doesn't cover his stomach. I don't care what you say; Luke _totally_ surpasses horrible painting/modeling error Sanosuke.

"Just out of curiosity, why are you all siding with Van this time?" Guy asked. "I get the sense that you don't feel quite as strongly about this by the fact that you didn't say anything throughout the past four pages."

"Well, it's more that dramatic speeches are the Commandant's show and woe unto he who interrupts than anything," Largo explained. "Personally, I hate the Corporations for what they did to me… You see, when I was a young boy, I desperately wanted one of those toy train sets that you can set up into giant tracks and make it really really hard for people to get around your house. They were the latest thing advertised by all the big sellers, All Your Toys 'R Belong to Us, Toue-Rei-Zue-Kuroa-Ryuo-Toue-Zue-Mart, all of them. I had been extra good all year to ensure that Santa would bring me one, but times were tough for my family, and they couldn't afford the latest gizmos and such. My father tried to make me a train set, but it just wasn't the same, even if he was a fontech engineer. It was that Christmas that I learned the harsh reality of this world, that sometimes even good children don't get everything that they wanted for Christmas. This horrible truth gnawed at me, until at last I had no recourse but to go into the desert and make a living as a bodyguard-type person, and we all know how that ended up. Plus once I had finally earned enough money to buy the train set, all of the stores stopped carrying it. But now I can finally take revenge on the Corporations, and, with us supplying toys to the children of the world, see to it that such a thing never happens again! Plus maybe I can get Van to make me one of those train sets if I'm a loyal henchman."

"I never had a Christmas when I was living with my animal friends," Arietta said, tears forming in her eyes. "It was always just… 'Do you want some meat?' 'Do you have enough water?' 'Aren't you cold with that ridiculous-looking, furless body?' They never really paid any attention to my needs as a human child. But now," she clenched one fist, "now I'm with all of you, and once we defeat the Corporations, Van will definitely let us have a real Christmas like some sort of bizarre family bent on destroying the world on their off-days."

"Nothing particularly bad has ever happened to me related to Christmas, but once we succeed in this mission, the Commandant will surely see how useful I am and how necessary it is that he keep me by his side. Closer if possible," Regret said as cheerfully as she ever says anything.

"After those guys tried to throw me into the volcano and missed, I wandered alone for a long time…" Sync said. "There were no Christmases during that time, only the blackness of my soul, the emptiness of my existence. I kept praying that Santa would come and make me a real boy like in that story with the crazy puppet that I knew about for some reason, instead of being a crazy green-haired clone who was born at age 12 or something. I even made a mask with a ridiculously long nose, but it was all in vain. So I'm going to help Van to rebuild Christmas, so that I can become a real boy! Plus he said I'd get to destroy stuff, and if I can't destroy all of existence, then stuff is the next best thing."

"Don't look at me," Dist said. "Van keeps on saying that he'll get me Nebilim's replica data if I do what he asks. You know, help try to destroy the world, help save Christmas, go pick up the dry cleaning (you have no idea what it takes to get that outfit of his clean…), etc. Come to think of it, I have no idea why he would even have Nebilim's replica data, but, if he says he does…" he shrugged. "Oh, and he said he'd get me a replicated Santa Claus hat, which I think would look really nice… on… um… Nebilim…" he cleared his throat nervously as the others stared at him for a second, then turned back to various other things of no particular interest.

Meanwhile, over by the punch bowl, Luke and Anise were conversing about something completely unimportant.

"And _that's_ why I haven't told Tear that I like her yet," Luke finished, completely out of breath.

"Uh-huh…" Anise said. "Oh, you're done. Thank God!"

"Thanks, Anise."

"Luke, the average girl outside of the fandom doesn't want to hear about how much you like another girl."

"I was hoping you'd have something more helpful to say…"

A truly biting and probably hilarious response was, unfortunately, prevented from every seeing the light of day thanks to a cry of "Anise! Anise!"

"Ion?" she identified the speaker. "What's wrong?"

"It's Florian!" The look of concern on her face changed to one of outright worry. "He says he's going to devour my soul!"

"Is that even possible?" Luke asked.

"I met him this morning, how would I know?" Ion snapped. "Oh, I'm sorry Luke, but—but—but—but—!" At that moment the perfect(?) duplicate of the boy clinging, or rather, as close to clinging as one can get with someone one's own height, to Anise walked up. Without a moment's delay, Ion ducked behind his loyal guardian, trembling.

"Oh, Ion, would you stop that? Or at least save it for- [[The rest of this sentence has been censored by the Federal Bureau of Fanfic Investigation for containing content that is potentially objectionable. Having now discharged our duty we regretfully inform you that anything else you object to in this fic is your own problem. We humbly recommend you grow up and stop being such a baby. Have a nice day.

"I can't help it! I know I've been face to face with monsters that tend to border on the 'not very threatening looking' side of things and crazed evil masterminds bent on destroying the entire world, but hearing me tell me that he's going to devour my soul is just disturbing!" Ion said, in such a state of disarray that the last bit of what Anise said didn't register enough to knock him out.

"What? I never said that! You just took off in here, screaming!" Florian said, holding up his hands in a gesture of helplessness. "I don't think he's stable, Anise…"

"You liar!"

"Always with the accusations," Florian shook his head.

"But I… Anise, you have to believe me!" Ion pleaded. "I don't hallucinate! I mean, I may faint a lot and once in a great while I may do something completely suicidal _for a good reason_, but I don't hallucinate!"

Anise sighed. "Do you guys really have to fight like this?"

"I'm not fighting!" both protested at the same time.

"Anise, you really have to do something about these two," Luke said. "There's only so much of this I and everyone else can take. We don't exactly do love triangles around here, unless you count Legretta→Van→Destroying the Score… And that's not even a triangle! It's just a love angle!"

"I can't help being so attractive!"

"Pfffft… AHAHAHAHAHAHAH!" Luke collapsed against the table, laughing.

"Hey! That's mean!"

"Ow! You didn't have to kick me in the shin… Geez…"

"Ion! Defend my honor!" Anise shouted, pointing at Luke.

"Hey, that's not fair! I want to defend Anise's honor too!" Florian yelled, grabbing Ion by one shoulder.

"But I didn't even—"

"How dare you insult Anise?" Florian bellowed loudly and hurled himself at Luke. The bananas of Auldrant, meanwhile, grew ever more orange.

"Anise! Call off your attack-Ion!" Luke begged, trying to run but failing miserably thanks to the religious leader clone ensnaring his legs.

"Hah! With this I'll prove my feelings for Anise!" Florian launched into dramatic exposition. "You lose, Ion!"

"But I… I can't hurt Luke…"

"Aw, Ion, you're so cute when you stick to your principles!" Anise said.

"What?! But-but-but-but! No fair!" Florian cried, releasing his hold on Luke, who had toppled to the floor in their struggle. With one fist raised into the air, Florian shouted, "I'll get you somehow, Ion! Anise will be mine!" And with that, he vanished dramatically beneath the table.

"Why do I feel like I've just somehow made this situation even more complicated?" Luke wondered, staggering back to his feet.

"Yeah, Luke, why'd you have to be there for me to sic Florian on to make this more complicated?" Anise demanded, hands on her hips. "Who knows what he'll come up with now that he's out of sight?"

"He's under the table!" Luke pointed. "He didn't run off to some secret evil laboratory! Though, admittedly, if there were to be an evil laboratory underneath the table, this would be the party and the crowd most likely to have one. But even Jade isn't that crazy… right?"

The two exchanged uneasy glances. "Um… Florian?" Anise called. "There's not a secret evil laboratory down there, is there?" Gingerly, she lifted up the tablecloth and peered underneath. "Oh, good, it's just stately Curtiss Manor. Nothing to worry about."

"Did I hear… Ion!" Like a pink and black streak, Arietta dashed onto the scene and tackled the Fon Master to the floor, much as Anise had earlier, only with more of a catlike face-rubbing thing because the fanboys demand it. "Ion! You're alive!"

"Hey, that's _my_ shtick!" Anise pouted. "Ion! Don't just let her—"

"I can't overpower Arietta! You guys seem to keep forgetting the reason I needed a bodyguard in the first place!" Ion snapped, somewhat uncharacteristically.

"Oh, right… Get off of him! He's mine!" Anise forcibly pulled the two apart.

"And you got him killed!" Arietta shouted back, fighting free of Anise's grip.

"So did you!"

"Huh?"

"Oh, right, she doesn't know…" Anise muttered. "Um… never mind!"

"And anyway, you aren't Ion's guardian anymore, so he's as much mine as anyone's! I won't just let you steal him again!" Arietta reached for Ion, who was still too dazed to have moved.

"Hold it!" Anise shouted, making an overly emphatic pointing gesture. "Ion smells like licorice, right? Therefore he's _mine _by the law of the jungle!"

"But… but that's not…" the beast girl moped. Abruptly, her expression changed to one of indignation (fit to match the spell, as it happens). "I'll get you somehow!" she vowed with a raised fist. And with that, she ran off, dramatically vanishing into a side-room to plot her vengeance.

"This is getting to be like something out of Pirates 3…" Anise made another obligatory pop culture reference. "Hm… Ion's still too stunned to move… I wonder…" Ion's head dropped from its semi-raised position back to the floor as she spoke. "Oh, damn it! Alright, that tears it, I need a plan…" And with that, Anise vanished dramatically through one of the holes in the ceiling, for the sake of originality, you understand.

Luke stared after her, then down at the unconscious Ion. "Yeah, okay, this probably isn't even the weirdest thing that's going to happen tonight. That's kind of depressing…"

"Oh, hey, Luke… fancy meeting you here. No, wait, I mean… um… hi," Tear fumbled, walking up next to him. "Uh… why is Ion…?"

"The usual," Luke said, picking up the unconscious Fon Master and looking around for a good place to put him. "Oh, that's right! Your gift!" he exclaimed, dropping Ion, who fell to the ground with a thud. "I'll be right back!" he promised and took off running.

"Uh… Luke…" Tear stared at Ion, now rather more sprawled across the floor.

By the time she had finished checking the Fon Master for injuries, Luke was back. "Um… Tear…" he began, hands held behind his back. "Uh… well… these are for you!" With a sudden motion he held out the gift he had been hiding, a bouquet of Selenias he had prepared just for the occasion. Thus it was much to his surprise when the bouquet he offered to Tear was, in fact, filled with Filifolia, which promptly attempted to eat both of their faces. "Gah!" Luke slammed the unwanted plant life against the table several times, attempting to break its neck, as it were. After a moment the snapping flora fell silent and still. "Those weren't—I didn't—I—I—" Luke tried to start several sentences at once, ineffectively. Finally, he settled upon "JADE!"

"Flowers were no good?" Jade asked, suddenly appearing as if from nowhere. "Hm… that's strange. I never figured you as someone who was especially hard to buy for, Tear. You struck me as _exactly _the type who would go all crazy shojo-eyed over something as cliché as being given flowers."

"You replaced my flowers with deadly… things!" Luke accused. Tear just stared at her feet.

"My, you really are hard to please, too. First the room has had too many vital supports removed, then the traps are too potentially life-threatening, then your flowers are more dangerous than you wanted…" Jade shook his head. "You're quite a pair. You kids have fun now." He walked off, humming contentedly.

"… Jade just… made this our fault, didn't he?"

"Seems like it…" Tear said.

"Right, well… I'll be right back… again…" And Luke walked off, rather less enthusiastically this time.

Tear sighed. "What's wrong, Tear?" Mieu asked as he walked out from beneath the table, awkwardly holding up a "Stately Curtiss Manor is #1" foam finger with both hands and ears.

"Hmm? Oh, hi Mieu. It's nothing, just this thing with Luke is kind of…"

"Say no more!" he interrupted. "I'll help you, Tear! I know just the thing!"

"Um… no, that's okay, Mieu, I don't—" Tear began.

"After all, a courageous heart and lots of manly shouting can make anything possible!" Mieu declared.

"But Mieu, you're not… you don't…"

Triumphantly, the blue cheagle raised the foam finger high above his head. "Who the Hell do you think I am?" Casting aside the novelty item like so many doubts (the finger hit Tear, too), he struck a fighting pose, ears stuck out behind him like some sort of heroic scarf billowing in the wind. "I'm Mieu, Agent of Love™! With cupid's arrow, I can pierce the heavens themselves! And then, by as much as your glory surpasses all the beasts of Earth, my glory will surpass yours!"

"What are you—" Tear's face was a mixture of confusion and fear that she knew exactly where this was going.

"There's no time to explain! I have to break through Heaven and fly me to the moon so I can stand up to the victory and then stop in the name of love!"

"But…"

"Please, trust me! Let's get started, ready steady go! Super Mieu transformation!" Mieu twirled in place like a tiny ballerina with enormous ears, finally coming to a halt in a dynamic pose, limbs flared out away from his body, wearing a white sash. "Break out and cross over into the future! I can fly! Motto motto! Mieu, Agent of Love™, IKIMASU!" Launching himself off of the table, Mieu soared into the gaudily-decorated sky that was really just the inside of Luke's house, as "Fly! Mieu," blared loudly somewhere in the recesses of his own mind.

Tear covered her eyes with one hand, afraid to look. "Is it… wrong of me to hope that he crashes into something…?" she wondered aloud.

"Tear? Is something the matter?" Guy asked, walking over from where the rest of the group had been relating their obligatorily traumatizing Christmas-themed pasts.

"Well, it's the whole thing with Luke…" she tried again, hoping to actually complete the thought this time.

"That idiot…" Guy muttered. "I'll go talk some sense into him."

"No, it's not Luke himself," Tear explained. Guy looked at her quizzically for a second. "It's Mieu… he's decided to 'help…'"

"Oh. That would explain why he just flew past singing 'Coming to the rescue from a distant galaxy… Shooting through the stars, it's Mieu, Agent of Love™!'"

"Oh God…" Tear moaned.

"He sang the trademark symbol, too… Don't ask me how, but… it was actually kind of impressive," Guy scratched his chin as he considered the logistics of what he had just said. Seeing Tear, who looked about ready to collapse or burst into tears, or both, it occurred to Guy that he may have been working with the wrong strategy. Accordingly, he flailed his arms in what was very probably a completely ineffectual attempt to… do something. "Ah… I mean… um… how bad could it be…? I mean, you know Luke! He wouldn't… like… hate you forever because Mieu's acting crazy or anything like that!"

"Do you remember the time _Anise _tried to set us up?" Tear asked, dead serious.

"Uh… the one where she got everyone but you two to abandon the hot springs and stole your clothes and you were both too embarrassed to come out for like, 6 hours, so she just assumed it worked brilliantly only for us to find out that you guys were actually half-dead from sweating out most of the water in your bodies, which was probably made worse by the awkwardness of the whole situation?" Guy gasped for breath as he finished, unaccustomed as he was to Van-length sentences.

"I was thinking of the one where she had us stranded on that island in our sleep, actually."

"Oh? How did that go?" Guy asked. "She's been bugging me to get an official report."

Tear glared at him. "How do you _think _it went? We were stranded on a deserted island with no idea what happened to the rest of you and no feasible way off!"

"Well, you know… moments of desperation and all…" Guy couldn't quite bring himself to look at Tear as he said this.

"Yeah, so desperate that we accidentally hyperresonanced ourselves into the middle of Grand Chokumah. Wearing what we had worn to sleep. We had to ask Emperor Peony for clothes, which was only slightly superior to the alternative of walking around in what we had on."

"Oh… geez, that explains a lot of those comments I keep getting about you two… Speaking of which, I just wanted to clarify that I had absolutely nothing to do with that one time with the cat suits… That was entirely Anise's idea. And maybe Peony had something to do with it, too."

"… I've been trying to forget that one…" Tear said, her left eyebrow twitching.

"Oh… sorry."

"What is it with you guys and not just leaving us to our own devices?" Pausing, she winced. "Okay, so that was a really bad turn of phrase, but…"

"This is Anise we're talking about," Guy shrugged. "She only actually _has_ an attention span when it comes to money and Ion."

"Well, I'm sorry if we're not fast enough for you gu—Oh, gods not again…" Tear smacked her forehead.

"Hey, look, we've all had problems with Freudian slips," Guy shrugged. "Like that time when I said I originally intended to murder Luke in his sleep, I really meant… well… okay, that one was a bad example, but the point is everyone forgot about it after they locked me in my room for a couple of weeks under close surveillance."

"Who said anything about Freudian slips?" Tear demanded rather loudly. "I mean, it's not like I was—I wasn't thinking—Y-You think I honestly—Gah!" She turned and stormed off.

"Where are you going?"

"The spare closet we have for when _major_ characters randomly disappear! I need a break… If Luke comes back, tell him he can find me in… the…" the rest of the thought was cut off by a cry of exasperation that, mercifully shattered several lighting fixtures and forced the story to relocate elsewhere before Tear completely pulled an Anise. In context, it is unclear as of the time of this writing whether said pulling would be metaphorical or otherwise, and in either case, interest levels would be far too low for such an act to merit inclusion in the story, right? Don't answer that.

"Valiantly, Mieu soars through the party, determined to bring justice and love to the unloved and the unjusticed! His mission today is to get Tear and Master to confess their feelings so everyone can stop impatiently waiting for them to get their act together! Can he overcome the odds and their respective inability to be straightforward with each other? Or will everyone be doomed to numerous comic antics as the entire plan fails miserably? Next, on Ai no Senshi Mieu: 'In the name of love, I shall bring you together!' Go forth, Mieu, and carve a path to a future full of love!"

"Is that… Mieu narrating?" Natalia asked vacantly. Asch, in a not-really rare moment of absolute annoyance, gave what has since become known as an "Asch smile" or "Akushcyrerrln Evos," spelled properly in the language in which it was first named. It has been postulated that Asch only smiles at things that he really despises, merely a rumor based around the fact that Asch picked up the odd mannerism of smiling to show loathing from someone else with physics defying hair. Which narrows it down to about half of the people in his universe and most of those in any other given anime-looking universe. Furthermore, he… oh, no one gets this anyway. And it's not like I can afford to only write for awesome people (and I guess that person who did the Inuyasha crossover, too). If only… oh well, moving on.

"You have a cheagle playing matchmaker?" Dist asked, his left hand clenching and unclenching as he tried his best to cope with the chair withdrawal that was beginning to set in. "Well, I suppose with this group…"

"Not usually, no," Natalia answered, trying not to look directly at Dist for fear that the magical properties of the flower-thing behind his head would cause her to turn to stone. Admittedly, she'd never seen it happen to anyone, but Anise wouldn't lie, and besides, things like that always seemed to affect princesses worse than everyone else anyway.

"If my soul wasn't a black pit of emptiness that only exists in this worthless life by a freak accident, I'd think that was cute," Sync commented.

"What a coincidence!" Largo said. "I was just thinking that, if I weren't forever scarred by the fact that people who predict the future didn't tell me my wife was going to die, I'd think that was cute!"

"I wish the Commandant were here…" Regret said, a wistful look in her eyes.

"You do know he's just outside, right?" Asch growled. "You could go talk to him. Instead of standing in here continuously telling us you wish he were here."

"I couldn't interrupt the Commandant's important work for my own selfish reasons!" Legretta said firmly, appalled by the very idea.

"You know, Legretta, now that we're not enemies, I think I should tell you that you should go tell him how you really feel," Natalia suggested. "It happens that some men just don't pick up on subtlety, you know, and Van certainly seems the type."

"Oh, I couldn't do that, either… Even if he felt the same way, it'd only distract him, and he'd never forgive me if I did something like that that interfered with his plans."

"So if he loved you, he'd never forgive you? That's not very romantic."

"The Commandant is a complex individual. I don't expect you to understand."

"Hm…" Natalia thought hard for a moment. At last, an idea struck her. Snapping her fingers, she exclaimed "Of course! I've got it!"

"What?" Legretta asked. "I told you already, I don't think it would ever really work out beyond me acting as Van's subordinate…"

"No, no, you're thinking about this all wrong!" Natalia said. "You're worried that you'll distract Van from his grand master plan if you express your feelings for him because he'll fall in love with you, right?" Legretta nodded uncertainly. "So the only way that falling in love with you _won't _distract him from his master plan is if we make it so that the two of you being a couple _is _his master plan!"

"That's… that's brilliant!" Legretta exclaimed. "But… I mean… Van usually does the manipulation, I'm not really sure I should start out by stealing his thunder…"

Natalia took the God General by the shoulders, looking her in the eye. "Regret, this is love we're talking about! You can't afford to not use manipulation! Right, Asch?" Asch grunted. "See, even Asch doesn't disagree, just as I intended it."

"But I… but that… how did…" For once at a loss for words, Legretta glanced back and forth between the Kimlascan nobility in confusion. At last, she said simply, "What do we do?"

"Mieu!" Natalia called.

"Flying through the air above the party, ever vigilant, Mieu hears a desperate plea for help! His patrol abruptly brought to an end, our hero answers the call without a moment's hesitation! For he will, without wavering, follow wherever the path of Love and Justice leads, helping any who require assistance! Selflessly putting aside his own desires, he soars to the rescue on wings of happiness! The good praise his coming! The evil cower in fear before him! For he is Mieu, Agent of Love™!" Mieu announced dramatically, swooping down to land on Natalia's outstretched hand like some sort of very oddly colored self-narrating falcon.

"Great, Mieu, we need to make it so that Regret is completely irresistible to Van," Natalia told the cheagle. "So I'm going to need you to pick up a few things…"

"Say no more! Mieu, Agent of Love™ is on the case! The situation is most dire, therefore, I shall put aside my main quest to help Tear and Master and help you give Legretta a makeover!"

"Ah, yes, sidequests," Natalia said, her mind awash in a flood of memories of times when they had stopped saving the world to help Emperor Peony find his rappigs. "Oh, but where's Anise? We can't do a makeover segment without her… And we may need Emperor Peony, too."

"Nodding, Mieu, Agent of Love™ takes flight, his new mission underway! For he is sworn to spread love throughout the world, whatever the personal cost may be! Can the right makeover melt the icy heart of an evil mastermind, or has he already cast love aside along with his sister, homeland, former ward/friend, sanity, and in fact, the entire world as a whole, only that part didn't really happen? Find out on Ai no Senshi Mieu: 'Would you still love me if I wasn't the destruction of your enemies and eventually the entire planet?' Fly on, Mieu, through the black night, to the place where the Star of Love shines through the darkness!"

At that very moment, Anise was suspended in midair over the food table, held in place by a rope wrapped around her waist. Carefully, she lowered herself as stealthily as a person dressed in pink hanging in midair in the middle of a brightly lit room can do so. Luckily for our heroine, the rest of the people at the party were completely oblivious, and those that weren't didn't really care. Or were locked in closets. Or the like.

"Anise, super sexy amazing spy girl carefully hovers over the punch bowl. Nervously she pulls at the capsule tucked in her pocket. This is the moment of truth, of destiny, of—"

"Hey Anise, why are you self-narrating?" Guy asked, staring up at her. "I mean, at this point, having someone else self-narrate just seems like it would be kind of overdone."

"Shush! I'm being stealthy!"

"You're… hanging from the ceiling. Wearing bright pink. Why are you hanging from the ceiling?"

"Shut up! There isn't any other way down, okay?"

"What are you doing on the roof in the first place?"

"It was a dramatic exit! Now get out of the way before—" Anise was cut off as something extremely unexpected happened.

"Aaaaah! Cliché falling on top of each other scene! Get it away!" Guy squirmed out from a tangle of arms and legs and cheap plot devices and other body parts/narrative features he was trying not to think about and took off, screaming, "Exit stage left! Exit stage left!"

"Tokunaga! You were supposed to be holding the rope!" Anise accused as she dusted herself off. The giant, animated doll just flailed its fingerless, floppy arms in an apologetic gesture, then shrunk back to its normal size. She picked up the stuffed bear… thing and slung it over her back, sighing. "Oh well, this works too… and it got rid of Guy." Carefully, she emptied the vial she was holding into the punch bowl, then stealthily slinked away, her face covered in a wicked smile.

"Heheh… with this, Ion will definitely not faint this time! Vindication shall be mine! So says Amazing Magical Pretty Spy Girl Soldier Anise-chan! Mwahahahahah!" She coughed, clearing her throat. "Wow… I can see why the Colonel likes laughing maniacally so much… Anyway, spiking the punch bowl was a brilliant idea. Now I just need to wait for the ideal moment to implement the rest of my plan. By which I mean… getting Ion to drink some of the punch… Yeah, okay, so it's not very needlessly elaborate, but it gets the job done, right Tokunaga?" The stuffed bear grinned, which Anise took to be a sign of approval. "Well, as long as no one else spikes the punch, it'll be—" she stopped suddenly. "Oh no. No. I'm not falling into THAT cliché! Hah!"

Meanwhile, two figures stealthily crept towards the food table from opposite directions, each so alert to anyone approaching that they completely missed each other. Carefully, first one, then the other emptied small containers of liquid into the concoction of fruity delights and apparently several poisons and/or date rape drugs. At last, satisfied that they hadn't been seen, they turned to admire their work.

"Oh! Ion!" Arietta exclaimed in surprise. "I… like your ribbon."

"Really? Thanks!" the boy opposite her smiled brightly.

"I was just… um… making sure the punch was made with animal-safe processes…"

"Really? That's exactly the excuse _I _was going to—I mean, that's exactly what I was doing!"

"I um… don't think we should drink any of it, though…"

"Yeah, you're probably right."

"Well, see you later, Ion."

"Bye!" he ducked under the table again. "Who was that?" he wondered aloud. "Oh, well, whatever. Now I can get rid of that other Ion and Anise will be all mine! So says recently discovered brilliant chemist and evil mastermind Florian!" he announced, sweeping aside the suspicions of anyone who hadn't been paying attention. "Poisoning the punch will assure my success without fail! And it's so original! Right, creepy picture of Jade with obligatory moving eyes?" The portrait blinked once, and since that means yes coming from all the cool unmoving people, Florian turned back to his usual business with a smile on his face and a warm glow in his heart, knowing that his poisoning attempt was well underway.

"Well, that was easy…" Arietta said as she walked away. "I'm just glad the only person there was… Ion!?"

"Huh? Oh, hi, Arietta…" Ion said, rubbing his head.

"Weren't you just… over there?" she pointed towards the refreshment table.

"Um… I don't remember that… but I kind of have a headache, so…"

"What happened to your ribbon?" she said, peering at him.

"The ribbon? Oh that was—! I mean… it fell off…" Ion stammered. "Now if you'll excuse me I have to get far, far away from that table."

"Um… okay… bye again, Ion," she waved as the Fon Master walked off. "Now… um… oh, right, I was expositioning… When she drinks that poisoned punch, Anise will be dead, and then I can have Ion all to myself! So declares master of exotic poisons and random wild animals and also one of the God Generals Except for Asch, Arietta! After all, no one would suspect an innocent punch bowl to actually be filled with deadly snake venom, right?" she turned to the liger which had been constantly standing a few feet to her right, matching her pace. The enormous cat shook its head. "Oh, what would you know about poisoning people anyway? The snakes will like my plan! Hmph!"

"Oh, Anise, you're here!" Natalia exclaimed, seeing the youngest member of the group walk past.

"What date-rape drug?" she demanded. "I have no idea what you're talking about!"

"… Right, well, we need your help. We're trying to change Legretta's look so that Van will concoct an elaborate scheme to bring the two of them together."

Anise pondered this for a moment, finally saying, "Wow, that's an extremely clever and convoluted plan, coming from you, Natalia!"

"… Thanks?"

"Let's get to work!" Enthusiasm practically radiated from the former Fon Master guardian as she took a moment to examine Legretta more closely. "Alright, well first, the skirt needs to be shorter…"

"But it's already—"

"Shorter!" Anise insisted. "And you definitely need to not wear a normal looking Order of Lorelei outfit."

"But it's… a uniform… I can't just…"

"Think about it!" Anise interrupted. "Everyone around Van wears Order of Lorelei regulation stuff. You need to stand out! Like Dist! …Okay, not like Dist. But you need to stand out anyway. That's why I wear pink! Also because pink is amazing and wonderful and love and also justice, but I don't think it'll work for you so let's move on. Oh, and you can probably lose about half the material, since it's not like you have anywhere to conceal weapons or the like anyway."

"…Are you _sure _that this is a good idea?" Regret asked. "I mean, the Order has a certain image to maintain… You remember the whole 'Order of Lorelei Girls Gone Wild,' incident, right? We had to execute people over that one."

"Well, if it works, Van would definitely romantically protect you even if it meant going against the world itself," Natalia said dreamily. "I mean… I guess he goes against the world itself a lot, but… still… um… As to whether it would work… well, what does Van like?"

"You can't go wrong with a 'less is more' mentality," Anise nodded sagely. "Personally I've always seen Van as sort of a pseudo—"

"That's enough, Anise…" Natalia interrupted. "Legretta?"

"Oh… well… I don't… really know what the Commandant likes… I mean, I couldn't ask him, there are so many more important things for him to devote his mind to working on…" Anise and Natalia sighed, and began to set about their backup strategy.

"…and, so, here we are," Natalia explained.

"And what a lovely here it is," Anise added, trying vainly to move an arm pinned to her side by the Kimlascan princess' ribs.

"So you interrupted my trying to get away from everyone to ask me what my brother looks for in women?" Tear asked in what can only be described as a passive aggressive manner. The four of them, Tear, Anise, Legretta, and Natalia were packed into one of the spare closets that dotted Fabre Manor for no evident reason. As such the scene was something of a mix between having a conversation and playing twister, only sans the ability to fall over and relieve the pressure. Legretta had tried, but only managed to end up hanging by her own arms from the shoulders of the other two newcomers.

"Yeah, that's pretty much it," Anise agreed. Legretta remained silent, either embarrassed at the prospect of seeking advice on love from one her former students or simply unable to work her lungs with said student's knees in the way.

"Even though I was clearly in a state of distress when I came in here and requested, no, demanded to be left alone?"

"Right," Natalia said.

"Okay, then, as long as we're clear. So, um… what Van likes…" Tear tapped Natalia's chin as a substitute for her own, which was unreachable at the moment. "Well… he likes destroying the world…? Also, needlessly elaborate schemes."

"Yes, those are really easy things to duplicate in an outfit."

"It's not like I followed him on dates!"

"What kind of younger sister are you?" Anise demanded.

"He's eleven years older than me! And besides, he was ostracized in Yulia city anyway. I'm not sure he _had _dates."

"That would explain so much," Anise said, ignoring Legretta's attempt to, by proxy, elbow her in the ribs by forcing her into Tear's elbow using her own foot.

"Can't you guys just leave me alone?" Tear all but pleaded. "Every time I talk to someone tonight something goes horribly awry. And I'm getting the sense that Natalia's spare bowstring somehow tying my legs together is just the tip of the iceberg on this one."

"No. Sorry, you're vital to the plot. Besides, it could be worse!" Anise gave a sideways thumbs up. "The entire cast could tragically sacrifice themselves for you one by one! I mean, just imagine, Ion times like, 4 or 5 other people!"

"But… But that only happens for male protagonists, so by default I'd be one of the sacrificers, not the sacrificee."

"Well, you could have to blow up ships full of refuges one at a time because you know that one of the ships in the fleet has a dangerous super-weapon that will spell certain doom if it reaches its destination! It doesn't get much angstier than that. Unless, of course, they were refugee kittens with giant green eyes, filled with shojo-y tears, that stare into your very soul as they ask you why they had to die…"

"But… I mean… kittens aren't…"

"Oh, I've got one!" Natalia said, having now somehow managed to flip herself completely upside down. "You could also be completely forgotten about by your not-really-loyal subjects for two years and then finally wake up to find yourself stripped of your powers and then have to assemble an army to take over Hell, which should rightfully be yours in the first place!"

"That's not angsty." Anise complained to Legretta's left boot.

"No, but imagine Tear ruling Hell!"

"Oooh, good point! Yeah, what Natalia said!"

"…Why do I like you people?"

"Oh, c'mon, Tear! Help us set up your brother with your mentor/older sister figure! That's sure to make you feel better!"

"But…"

"Great! Let's go!"

"Just one thing… does anyone have a body part that's actually still in contact with the ground? You know, so we can get out of here and detangle ourselves?" Tear asked. Suddenly, everyone stopped talking, possibly even breathing. For a long moment, there was silence, then, "…I hate Christmas fics."

"Oh, come on, you're at least sure to get a kiss out of it by the end! It wouldn't be a proper Christmas fic, otherwise. I, on the other hand, have to deal with some sort of twisted love… X… parallelogram… thing… Of doom."

"Yeah, but you brought that on yourself. At least Ion communicates through something other than angry shouting and growls."

"I wish my relationship with the Commandant were at the point where I could complain with you girls… But then, I couldn't possibly have any reason to complain about the Commandant…"

"You mean, other than his reputation for pedophilia, right?"

"And what exactly gives the Lolita girl the right to say that?"

"You just wait! I'll show you _and _Tear when I get older!"

"Why are you dragging _me _into this? I'm not nearly as obligatorily large-chested as most female leads."

"Hmph."

"N-Natalia…?"

Unfortunately, at this point we lost contact with our cameraman, who reportedly ran off to inform all of his friends about the 'catfight in the closet.' Ironically, this is exactly what Arietta was busy putting a stop to somewhere on the other side of the manor, which caused quite a deal of confusion, as well as name-calling, among the cameraman's friends, which pretty much serves him right anyway. Suffice it to say, when next we join our heroines except Arietta, the above will probably have been completely resolved through much twisted… body part flailing action or some such and may, in fact, be completely disregarded as of this point onwards. As per the gravity act of 1999, we are hereby required to recommend safety helmets to those of you who got your hopes up. Anything else we _really _don't want to hear about.

Next time, on How The God Generals Replicated Christmas, it's…

Shojo Eye for the Villainess Girl

Starring:

Natalia, the Princess: In charge of giant poofy things and dresses and also the hopeless romantic stuff.  
"I think Legretta and Van have the potential to be OTP of the year!"

Tear, the One Who Would Actually Rather Be in the Closet: In charge of clothing (and healing spells where required).  
"Why am I doing this? I stopped being under contract when we finished saving the world. There is absolutely no reason I should have to put up with all this…"

Anise, the Borderline Lolita Girl: In charge of _lack _of clothing. Also incredibly awkward statements.  
"Well, you know, personally I'm always a little suspicious that guys who are expert swordsmen are actually compensating for something, but you know, I really don't think Regret is going to care at this point. And the dual pistols sort of throw the entire equation into question, so…"

Okay, I lied about that part. Here to explain how is none other than Mieu, Agent of Love™!

Mieu: Thanks Duo! Today on the Mieu Variety Show we've got special guest Dr. Moreau to discuss the many fabulous creatures of Auldrant and why none of them actually look remotely threatening. Doctor?

Guy: Isn't this supposed to be an episode preview?

Mieu: But this is more fun! Episode previews are boring.

Guy: You've been doing episode previews for half the chapter!

A second blue Cheagle: ((Appears from nowhere)) Don't fall for it, Guy! That cheagle before you is not Mieu, Agent of Love™! It's my replica, Mieu, Evil Clone of Mieu, Agent of Love™!

Guy: ((Looks back and forth between the two)) I am _not_ getting paid enough for this. Is there anyone in the cast who _hasn't_ been replicated?

A second Guy: ((Walks up)) Well _apparently _not!

Mieus: ((In tandem)) Will Legretta's makeover make over Van's… not noticing or reacting to her blatantly throwing herself at him? Will Luke ever find Tear's present? Who is the mysterious, shadowy figure appropriately lurking in the shadows? Who framed Roger Rabbit? And while we're at it, William Shatner, is there anything you _can't_ do (or… at least… aren't _willing _to do)? Next time, "How the God Generals Replicated Christmas," Episode 3: Day of the Invasion of the Mieu Replicas From the Sinister Island of the Brilliant Dr. Curtiss!

Guys: ((In tandem)) Wait, what? Jade's planning to—?

Mieus: Um… we mean… The Resurrection of Santa Claus! With Godspeed and jingle bells, fly through the night, Van!

Guys: Will _you _be home for the holidays?

((The following is in italics where appropriate. I don't care -what- this site says. On that note--stop eating my formatting!))  
Closing note: And so here we are again at the end of another installment. Thanks for reading! Especially considering that I blew this fic off for such a long time. Anyway, I'm going to see if I can do some sort of insane weekly updating thing since that's about all I have time for at this rate, if I want this done before Christmas, and I ought to be able to at least manage it for the next chapter (honestly, this time). I'm not sure I can write fast enough to keep up with that, but I'm gonna give it a shot, I think. Anyway, on with the ending notes of doom!

…that hanging bio-thing the Yuuzhan Vong use to torture themselves: The Yuuzhan Vong are a race in the Star Wars: The New Jedi Order series of books… anyway, this thing is some sort of weird device that keeps the person in it at a constant level of excruciating pain so they won't lose consciousness or something…it's all some insane masochist-y deal. Point being… ah… it's painful, and also that there should be some alternate media dealing with that timeline, because really, there's room for some pretty epic Rogue Squadron-like stuff, among other things, in that timeline.

Dist's whole "Shinigami" thing: Well, it's "Reaper" in English, but in Japanese it was "Shinigami" which is literally something like "Death God," though in Japanese mythology Shinigami basically are about equivalent to the Grim Reaper. Anyway, they're used a lot in manga and such, so he makes mention of the fact that he's nothing like the Shinigami from Death Note or from Bleach, and also that he's only somewhat similar to Duo Maxwell from Gundam Wing, who was also called a "Shinigami."

"How will I ever compete with Dr. Drakken? The man's blue!": Okay, so the whole Kim Possible thing may be leaking out into other areas of my fic…writing…ness. Sue me. The amazing thing, though? I thought of the "I'm just another guy with a flower around his head!" thing before I knew or cared that Drakken mutated himself and sprouted flower petals in the series finale (actually, it was written before the finale aired). Serendipity, I tells ya!

"I may as well just turn in my flower and go work for Gainax!": To be honest, I'm not even entirely sure what I'm talking about here, and yet I love the line anyway. Okay, so that's not entirely true, I'm pretty much talking about the character Leeron from Gurren-Lagann (see below) as far as being a blatantly gay robot mechanic goes, I'm just not sure Gainax would do it more than once, or if they have already.

"I've seen it bring the dead back to life as crazy ghosts in order to teach stingy old men a valuable lesson in a single night!": _Obviously a reference to __A Christmas Carol__, probably one of the most famous Christmas stories ever. Honestly, I'm not sure what to even say if you have no idea what I'm talking about at this point… Though on a side note, in our discussions of crack the friend who helped spawn this fic _did _suggest "A TotA Christmas Carol," with Asch as Scrooge. That kind of wins._

"Christmas is the season of existential crisis, after all.": _Sort of a self-directed joke here… last year I got kind of depressed around Christmas and all crazy existential questioning and whatnot. Happens right? I think… maybe… Ahem._

"Madness? THIS IS CHRISTMAS!": _Yeah, so a shameless use of an internet meme from _300 _here. Still, can't you just picture Van saying that? Actually, it's probably been done in the fandom already…_

Stately Curtiss Manor:_A joke off of Batman and other such characters who have stately mansions with secret laboratories hidden in them somewhere. I mean, Jade might be more the type to have a secret manor in his _lab,_but even so._

Anise's pointing gesture bit: _A reference to the Phoenix Wright games, which I haven't actually played but need to at some point. Anyway, so, yeah, this was a play on the whole "Objection!/Hold it!" thing with the big emphatic pointing gesture, coupled with the "by the law of the jungle" remark. _

"This is getting to be like something out of Pirates 3…": _Yeah, okay, that movie? Some great moments, but GOD everybody and their cousin was manipulating/backstabbing someone and being manipulated/backstabbed by someone else and just… Good lord! It helps a story to have_ someone _be straightforward at _some _point, you know!_

"A courageous heart and lots of manly shouting can make anything possible!": _This is somewhat ripped from a skit at Otakon that was sort of a general mecha parody (and thus was not really appreciated by most of the audience, sadly), which was, itself, borrowing it from King of Braves: GaoGaiGar. I think the original was just "A courageous heart can make anything possible," and then in the actual skit, it progressed something like "But you don't have a courageous heart!" "No matter, I'll compensate with excessive yelling." Anyway, what you need to know here is that it's an insane over-the-top awesome mecha show parody-type thing._

Mieu's Foam Finger / "Who the Hell do you think I am?":_ This is a reference to the insanely, amazingly epic super robot anime Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, which had, as a staple, a gesture where characters pointed towards the sky (Tengen Toppa literally means something like "break through heaven") and also the line "Who the Hell do you think I am?" (and variants thereof). Likewise, the "With Cupid's Arrow, I can pierce the heavens themselves," line and anything else about "breaking through heaven" etc. were references to this series. Which is awesome. Seriously, go check it out. _

And then, by as much as your glory surpasses all the beasts of Earth, my glory will surpass yours!": _This is a far more obscure reference than even most of the ones I use in these fics, to the story of Daphne and Apollo as told by Ovid. Basically what happens is Apollo sees Cupid with his bow and arrow on his way back from killing some giant viper, and says (going by memory of the translation, here) "What business do you have, boy, with a warrior's weapons?" They argue a bit, and Cupid at one point says, "Let your arrow pierce all, but let my arrow pierce you. Then, by as much as your glory surpasses all the beasts of Earth, my glory will surpass yours." And he proceeds to make Apollo fall in love with Daphne and Daphne hate Apollo, which, as you can imagine, does not end especially well. So… yeah… don't screw with Cupid._

"Please, trust me! Let's get started, ready steady go!": _These are both quotes from L'Arc en Ciel's "Ready! Steady! Go!" They're not in order, but…((shrugs))_

Ai no Senshi, Mieu:_This whole thing is sort of a Sailor Moon-style parody, together with the transformation sequence. Literally Ai no Senshi would be "Warrior of Love" not "Agent of Love," but it's one of those things… like "Aura Battler Dunbine," being officially named "Aura Battler Dunbine," (in English) by its creator, but the Japanese title translating out to "Holy Warrior Dunbine."_

"Break out and cross over into the future! I can fly! Motto motto! Mieu, Agent of Love™, IKIMASU!": _Okay, so here's a set of references all in a row… The first bit there is basically word for word ripped from the translation of JAM Project's song "Break Out!" the theme for the (recent) Super Robot Wars Anime. The second ("I can fly! Motto! Motto!") comes from the song "SKILL" by the same band (they're pretty awesome if you like crazy over-the-top-ness). Last but not least, "ikimasu!" is Japanese for "I'm going" or something like that, but the reference here is that it's often said by Gundam pilots as they take off (and probably pilots of various other things as well), and in that case it's usually translated as "launching!"_

"Fly! Mieu.": _This is a reference to old-school mecha theme songs, namely the opening theme of the original Mobile Suit Gundam "Tobe! Gundam," which basically means "Fly! Gundam." Similar names have been used elsewhere, for instance, Aura Battler Dunbine's opening is "Dunbine Tobu" which I believe is like… "Flying Dunbine" or some such. Admittedly those were both series created and directed by Tomino Yoshiyuki and he apparently also wrote the opening themes for both series, but it's not unheard of elsewhere._

"Asch smile," and thereabouts: _This is a reference to __Crest/Banner of the Stars__ a pretty awesome sci-fi anime/novel series. Basically it's ripped directly from a section describing the "Abh Smile" which is when the genetically enhanced humans who call themselves the Abh (basically they're blue-haired space elves… well, only the royal family has pointed ears, but their personality is somewhat fitting to the whole elf thing) smile to indicate loathing. The insane spelling thing of "the original language" is just a stab at my hatred for "Baronh" the series artificial language. Now, I think it's awesome that the series creator made up his own language and wrote at least bits of the novels in it (double spaced along with normal Japanese), but the 'correct' romanizations make no sense. "Lafiel" does not have an m in it, I don't care what language we're speaking of (Lafiel's nominative form is Lamhirh in 'authentic' Baronh written with English characters. It's pronounced about the same, might I add). Fortunately the official English versions opted for a phonetic spelling, which, really, makes sense when you're putting it in an English context. So, yeah, I have a language I hate the spelling of more than French now, even if I'm not sure it entirely qualifies._

"The entire cast could tragically sacrifice themselves for you one by one!"/ "That only happens for male protagonists.": _This is a reference mostly to Tales of Symphonia where pretty much everyone "dies" to save Lloyd only not really. Though it's also true of Final Fantasy IV, where the entire cast is freakin suicidal. And for some incredibly stupid reasons, too… two of the characters actually turn themselves to _stone _so that they stop the walls of a room that are closing in on you, I kid you not._

"Blowing up refugee ships one by one…": _Okay, now _this _may actually be even more obscure than anything else I've mentioned, because it's a reference to the video game Another Century's Episode (A.C.E.), which you could only have played if you imported it since it hasn't been released outside Japan (or at least, in English, it may have been released elsewhere). Anyway, the game is basically to mecha action games what Super Robot Wars is to strategy games, that is, it takes mechs from a bunch of different series and puts them all together, allowing you to play as any of them. Even though I can't speak Japanese, it's still kind of awesome to be able to play as Gundams in what is a pretty good game (since a pretty good Gundam game is practically an oxymoron). Point being… ah… yeah, the doomsday weapon killing of refugees thing is actually what happens in the end of that game. Which brings us to:_

Refugee Kittens: _This is from a conversation I had with a friend (Digitaldreamer, as it happens) when I first heard about the whole "shooting refugee ships because if you don't the world is screwed" thing. I was like "Dude… that's like, the angstiest thing ever!" She insisted that it wasn't to which I replied "Okay, fine, maybe if they were refugee _kittens,_ but barring that…" and she was sort of like "Well… yeah okay…" So I pretty much had to work it in._

The taking over of Hell: _This is basically the premise of Disgaea that Natalia quotes there. And really, _do _imagine Tear ruling Hell. If you dare. Mwahahahahahahah… Ahem._

Shojo Eye for the Villainess Girl: _Obviously a parody of "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy," but also a play on the term "Shojo Ai," or "Girl's Love," which is used to refer to girl-girl relationships, even though that really has nothing to do with what's going on here. Yes, I did sort of steal that from… well, I'm not entirely sure, though I _think _S.T.E.A.M.: The Movie (A fan parody by the guy who did "This is Otakudom," and if you haven't seen either of them, you need to. Otakudom is floating around as a torrent at the moment, though I don't think S.T.E.A.M. is, but they show it at conventions) did "Shonen Ai for the Yaoi Guy," or something like that._

Dr. Moreau: _A reference to the famous book __The Island of Dr. Moreau__ by H.G. Wells. Dr. Moreau apparently did a bunch of animal hybrid things, making animals more 'human,' but it didn't really work, etc. You know, if you're going to have fictitious guest stars, who better to talk about the cutesy monster designs of Auldrant than a guy known for doing insane stuff to animals?_

_And that's it for this installment of Duo explaining a bunch of jokes that you probably don't care about all that much if you didn't get them the first time. And it's just past midnight, so I've now missed my self-imposed deadline to get this thing up before it was _officially_December. Oh well… You've been a fabulous audience, unless you haven't been, in which case the (replica) ninjas will deal with you. And I promise it won't take me three months to update again… if only because I think Digi will kill me if I did that now that she's actually in to Tales of the Abyss. So you have my word. Well…okay, you've got like, 10,000 of those just in this one chapter, but… you get the idea._


	3. Santa Claus, Hasshin!

_Author Note: Twas the night before Christmas and the Author now knew  
That finishing the whole fic before Christmas was something he couldn't do.  
But he did make one promise, one you can believe,  
That the next chapter would be done come Christmas Eve._

_Okay, so this may actually go up very early Christmas morning. Whatever. I was _close._ Anyway, I can't say this surprises me, that I only got one chapter in the past three weeks. Though it was more life-related factors than lacking enthusiasm to work on the fic. I do plan to keep at it even after Christmas is over, hopefully the drive to write won't wear off (and hopefully you'll still be interested in reading it). That being said, this is a pretty good chapter to be the one that I put up -on- Christmas. You'll see why, I think. Maybe. I could just be insane. Ahem. _

_Thanks to everyone who's reviewed so far, and sorry I didn't get back to you like I wanted to (with one exception, I think). Gonna give that another try this time: If you leave me a review, I will seriously try to respond, even if it's just a "thank you." I do enjoy hearing from you folks, and besides which I'd like to knock "This Path of Radiance Seems Awfully Familiar," off of its pedestal as my most reviewed fic, since I stopped writing it over a year ago and it only had 3 chapters (I'd also like to break _that_record, but that's on me, not you)._

_Anyway, not much else to say, so without further ado, I give you:_

**How the God Generals Replicated Christmas  
In Something Remarkably Similar to Prose But with More Tangents  
Being  
A Tales of the Abyss Story Of Christmas and Related Insanity**

**Chapter 3: For Great Justice (also Love and Happiness and Amazing and Awesome. But mostly Justice)**

"In the darkness of the spot where Tear broke the lighting fixtures, Mieu, Agent of Love™ flies on! His watchful eyes trained on the ground beneath him, he spots his master, Luke fon Fabre, clearly in a state of distress! Without a second thought he activates his trusty Happiness Reader, which scans the scene below, giving vital information to our hero. A single glance at the orange eyepiece tells him everything he needs to know; desperation levels are high and happiness and hope and love and justice are fading fast!

"Mieu watches in horror as his master's aggravation level soars beyond the capacity of the eyepiece to measure, causing it to sizzle and erupt into static, falling to the ground below as its physical components begin to deteriorate under the rush of numbers. 'Stop self-narrating, Thing! It's really annoying!' the young man cries in anguish, but his call goes unheeded, the world around him going on without pause. At last, driven to the brink of madness, he seizes—"

"… Mieu, Agent of Love™ plummets to the floor, struck from the sky by a flying kumquat. Writhing in pain on the ground, he vainly struggles to get back to his feet, as—"

"Knock it off, already! Jeez!" Luke said, picking up the cheagle by the ears like some sort of ridiculously cute and off-colored wolf only not at all.

"But Master! I need to fight for truth and justice and especially love and awesome and—"

"Go do it somewhere else, then!" Luke said, irritably throwing the cheagle over one shoulder.

"But I've got to help you and Tear have your big romantic moment!" Mieu protested, hanging upside down in the air behind Luke. "You two can't do it by yourselves! You're too clichély nervous around each other!" He added, crossing his arms and giving an affirmative upside-down nod (which, upside down, was still a nod).

"Wh-who said anything about me and Tear having a big romantic moment?"

"Aw, Master, you'll make Tear cry if you keep saying stuff like that!" Mieu paused long enough to flip himself back upright, then went on, "And just imagine the syntax! It'd have more verb/noun confusion than the Aeneid!"

Ignoring the statement except for a slight redness creeping into his cheeks, Luke continued. "And who asked for your help anyway?"

"Tear did!"

"… Tear thinks we couldn't have a big romantic moment without help…?" Luke's shoulders slumped. "I mean… not that we were necessarily going to have a big romantic moment anyway, but if we were…"

"Don't worry, Master! Mieu, Agent of Love™ is here to help!"

"Mieu, do you even know anything about love?" Luke shot the tiny, annoying creature a sideways glance.

"Sure I do! I read a bunch of those books you kept hidden under your bed!"

Luke groaned. It wasn't that he was surprised, so much, but still… "I knew secretly reading romance novels was going to get me killed one day," he muttered.

"Now, you've already got amazingly physics-defying hair and exposed muscles, so all you need is to catch Tear under the mistletoe with some sort of romantic gift, and—"

"I've been _looking_ for my gift, Mieu."

"You lost the gift?" Mieu gasped. "Master! How could you? That's the most important part, next to being good in bed, whatever that means!"

"… Right…" Luke said, glancing around nervously. "Well, it's not like I lost it on purpose! Jade switched it with a bunch of Filifolia somehow."

"Oh, were those Selenias your gift?"

"You've seen them?" Luke practically pounced on the hovering cheagle.

"Yep! Jade told me to put them on the roof so you wouldn't… OH!"

"Mieu… Go. Get. Them."

"Master, you're scary when giant flames shoot out of your eyes."

"GO!"

"Mieuuuu…"

Luke stared after Mieu as he flew away, sighing. "Hey, wait a minute!" he shouted. "I thought you could only levitate! Why didn't you say you could fly back in the Radiation Gate or Mount Zaleho or someplace where it would have been useful? Mieu! Don't start flying faster when I'm complaining about your ability to fly! Mieu!"

The following is a scene change and does not reflect what happened immediately after Mieu departed Luke, or, for that matter, the views of ABC Family, but rather, what happened several minutes later. Also, buy Coke.

"Precious Selenias in hand, Mieu, Agent of Love™ speedily makes his way back towards the one who desperately needs them. It's a race against time with the only canon relationship where probably no one's technically died at stake! But Mieu flies onwards, undaunted by the enormity of his task or the relative enormity of the bouquet of flowers clutched in his far too small hands. For he knows at the end of his journey love awaits. Love: it is the power that drives him forward, the source of his great strength, the heartbeat of the stars themselves! And so, on and on he soars, certain that no obstacle can stand in his way. Will this confidence lead to his downfall? Can Mieu surpass the impossible with the power of love and courage? Ai no Senshi Mieu: Half-Moon Love. Wait and hope, for Mieu will, without fail—"

"Mieu! What are you doing? You're supposed to be helping us with Regret!"

"Oh, right!" Mieu flew down to where Natalia, Tear, Anise, and Legretta had somehow procured four sewing machines, three of which were silent they had realized that, given the size of the garment they were trying to create, only one of them could work on it at a time. Laying the selenias on the table, Mieu asked, "What do you need? Mieu, Agent of Love™ will most assuredly seek it out and deliver it to you!"

"Great, can you put your… paw… thing here for a second?" Tear asked, pointing at the strip of material in the machine.

"Sure!"

"Thanks." The machine started up again, creating with grace and speed from various tiny threads… something slightly larger than the various tiny threads that the process had begun with, albeit not by a whole lot.

"Everyone! Stop your trivial not-all-that-important-to-the-plot goings on and listen to me!" an unmistakable, booming voice… boomed, the cry echoing throughout the room. "The preparations are complete! The time has come for us to put an end to this struggle for the future of Christmas! Tonight, we dine in Hod, which I intend to pull out of the ocean as a gift to myself. God Generals, ASSEMBLE! And the rest of you come, too, because this is going to be really cool."

"Alright, it's done!" Tear said. "Thanks, Mieu. We couldn't have done it without you."

"No thanks necessary, Ma'am. It's all in a day's—"

"Yeah, yeah, can we hurry this up? The Commandant needs me!" Legretta interrupted. "That's fun to say," she added, giggling slightly. The others rolled their eyes and set to work.

The following is another scene change. We apologize for any inconvenience you may suffer or if you really liked that last scene for whatever reason. If you would like to purchase the last scene on a CD, the author would be more than happy to take your money and then whack you with a rolled up newspaper for being silly.

The author would like the reader to note that he personally takes no responsibility for that last statement. We now return you to your previously scheduled scene. That you… haven't actually… seen yet, so, really, we're not really returning you at all, just turning you. Sorry about the mix-up.

"Wow…" Luke gaped at the sleigh that had somehow been constructed in his front… yard-type stone path thing. It was sleek, painted bright red with golden accents. Reins and harnesses were draped over the front, waiting to be taken up on either end, and what looked to be a large jet engine was duct taped to the back. The entire thing seemed to glow with an inner light, as if the sleigh itself were imbued with the magic of Christmas. Or else radioactive.

"Yes, it is a rather impressive feat of engineering."

"Jade! Where have you been for… God, is that how long it's been? That's most of the last chapter!"

"I've been talking with Van," Jade shrugged. "We had an Evil Mastermind to Evil Genius talk, and I think it helped straighten out a few things about our eventual plans for a new world order where you will all be slave to us. We also played some Super Smash Bros. Brawl, which we already have a copy of because we're just that awesome. Oh, and we revamped Dist's chair so it will run on Christmas Fonons. Furthermore, I've increased its power so, if pulled by the right reindeer, it really will be able to fly around the world in just one night. I call it the Christmas Fonon Drive, because, as you're all no doubt aware, attaching the word 'drive' to the end of things makes them sound awe-inspiring."

"A Christmas Fonon Drive…" Luke said, mouth agape with awe. "Wait, Jade, I thought_ you _thought this entire idea of saving Christmas was stupid and pointless?"

"Well, it is. But if you're all going to do it anyway I may as well help out and get my name on the project." Jade shrugged.

"But Van, even if you could fly around the world in one night," Guy said, climbing out of the box in which he had been hiding, "how can you possibly afford to give presents to all of the children of the world?"

"With this!" Van said, holding out a small pile of greenery. Guy poked at the mass of leaves carefully, recalling that murderous flora seemed to be a theme of the party. When it didn't react, he shot Van a questioning look. "It's mistletoe," the goateed man explained. "Replicated mistletoe. We produce it cheaply at our various replication facilities no one thought to change the locks to and then we can undersell the corporations, funding our efforts and striking our first blow against them in one fell swoop. Plus we can always replicate gifts if we have to, but that's not nearly convoluted enough, so we're going to avoid that one unless absolutely necessary."

"I can't believe it's not mistletoe!" Guy exclaimed, leaning in to inspect the plants more closely. "What's it made of?"

"JUSTICE!" Van bellowed. "And the Seventh Fonon!"

"Fascinating…" Guy said.

"At any rate," Van went on, "we've got to get these," he patted a large sack nestled safely in the sleigh, "to the children of the world. God Generals, take your places!"

"… This is humiliating…" Sync complained, buckling the harness around his chest and donning a set of fake antlers and reindeer ears. "I mean, I don't really exist and everything is meaningless anyway, but this is meaningless and humiliating."

"Um…" Arietta turned to her Liger companions, pointing at the reins. The Ligers growled something that effectively meant, "Yeah… no." A literal translation would involve group tactics for hunting rappigs and a brief description of the glorious feast that would no doubt follow, so for the sake of showing that brevity is possible within the confines of this fic, it has been paraphrased. Sometimes it's a good thing.

"Excellent, excellent…" Van muttered as the other God Generals forced Asch into his designated reindeer equipment at spongepoint. "Now where's Legretta?"

"Dorian General Vandesdelca Grants!" a voice that seemed to be coming from everywhere shouted. "Are you ready to rock?"

"Anise, that's not what you're supposed to say!" another voice said.

"But Natalia! It's more dramatic this way!"

"Can we please focus for a minute?" a third voice spoke up.

"Okay, okay. Van, we took your fearsome God General Regret, and completely transformed her. And so, without further ado… Behold!" Anise, Natalia, and Tear walked out from the house, carting between them a mobile changing curtain. With a dramatic flourish, Anise threw open the curtain, and Legretta jumped down off of the platform.

It is at this point that some random and generally pointless background information is very much required. You see, Latin poetry, due to the lack of rhyming significance incurred when every word draws upon the same general pool of endings, incorporated entirely different and foreign-seeming techniques in addition to their own variant on limiting syllables. The most notable of these is the use of "sound effects" or using words whose nature or sound convey, separate from the word's meaning, some of the emotion or features of the scene they depict. For instance, quick, halting syllables could give a sense of a racing heartbeat, gentle, flowing words could be used to describe the sea on a calm day, and Garfield would be described in slang that stopped being good 5 years prior.

Though it is, sadly, bordering on the impossible to reproduce such technique in English, this author has decided to give it a go for this one scene, as a test of sorts. If successful, he hopes to prove that this technique is still a viable one and bring it back into the mainstream as much as possible with an audience of geeks who have time to read 50+ additional pages about a game they've already beaten. Therefore, without further ado following Anise's previous announcement of a lack of further ado, the author is proud to present the following description of Legretta's new outfit, characterized by the characteristics of the outfit itself.

It was

The entire assembly of heroes, villains, and people who were wondering why there was a sleigh in the middle of the palace courtyard stared in stunned silence. And no one was more silent than Van himself. Or, um… his silence was more… he… Yeah, never mind. It was quiet and awkward.

"Aren't you… cold?" Arietta asked.

"Well…" Regret said slowly.

"Anise, why is there a map of Auldrant painted on her stomach?" Guy said.

"Isn't it obvious?" The glances of the others showed it was anything but. "So Van can have world domi—"

"Okay, no!" Luke interrupted. "Just… no. I can't believe you even _thought _of saying that, Anise. That's HORRIBLE."

"_I _think it's funny!" Anise pouted.

"Well… Commandant…?" Legretta said nervously.

"Hmm? Oh, yeah, it's nice. Now get into your reindeer gear, we're on a tight schedule."

"Did you hear that?" Regret whispered to the other girls. "He said it was nice! Thank you guys so much!"

"Something… isn't quite right with that girl…" Natalia said, as they watched her cheerfully don a set of reindeer horns and a harness.

"So… why are you using the God Generals as reindeer?" Luke asked Van.

"Well, they're really the only minions I have left. Plus they can fly!"

"We can fly?" Largo nervously asked.

"Skill my HEART!" Mieu shouted popping out of Cacophonous Space Time. "To the edge of the galaxy, burn your passionate dreams! All I can do! Skill my SOUL—!" He was promptly interrupted by the sound of one hand clapping and also a tree falling in the forest with no one around to hear it.

"Well, _I _can fly," Dist said. "I don't know what the rest of you intend to do."

"My animal friends will save me," Arietta said with a shrug.

"And I can fly with the power of love," Regret added, nodding.

"Wait, Dist, you can only fly with your chair," Luke pointed out. "Arietta… I think all your flying animal friends are over there deliberately not paying attention," Luke pointed to the creatures, who were attempting to whistle idly through their various beak-like appendages. "As for you…" he turned to Legretta, not pointing at all. "Um… I don't even know where to start here, so never mind. But you probably can't fly."

"Oh…" The God Generals exchanged anxious glances.

"You know, come to think of it," Guy said, scratching his chin, "don't all of the Santa legends say that he had eight reindeer? You've only got six, Van."

"You're right!" Van shouted. "Fortunately, I had a plan in place for just such an occurrence! Foolish replica! My sister! Get over here and join the team!"

"You… you're kidding, right?" Luke asked.

"You can't possibly… I mean…" Tear stammered.

"I can't believe we're actually going to do this…" Luke moaned one timeskip later.

"How did we get into these things?" Tear wondered, pulling at the harness.

"I don't even know." Luke shook his head in bafflement.

"Well, at least he didn't pick me," Guy said, sighing with relief. "What with my being the one who brought it up and the collar and all, I was totally expecting to be…" Guy trailed off as Jade walked up, smiling, and calmly placed a small, glowing red ball on his nose. "But… but… but… Never mind…" Guy sighed, and reluctantly took his place at the head of the team.

"Well, then, off we go!" Van shouted and he gloated and called them by name; "Now Largo! Now Dist! Now Tear and Legretta! On Luke! On Asch! On Sync and Arietta! To the top of Fabre manor, to the top of the palace wall! Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!"

The indentured reindeer substitutes just stared at the MadSanta (also the title of an upcoming Lifetime Original Movie, for those interested) who had so commanded them, not moving the slightest bit. "Fine, then, we do this the hard way…" Van produced a coiled leather whip from somewhere within the sleigh, holding it aloft.

"Oh my God! He's got a whip!" Asch cried in terror.

"Everyone run for your lives!" Luke shouted.

"No! That's exactly what he wants!" Largo said.

"You've never seen Van with a whip, have you?" Luke asked the Black Lion.

"No, why?"

"You know how dangerous he is with a sword?" Asch said. "Think about ten times worse." As if to emphasize this point, Van cracked the whip upon the ground, where it reduced one of the stone tiles to rubble in an instant. The group turned wide eyes on the man in the sleigh, then all at once began fumbling with their harnesses, as a last resort slashing them with various daggers they made a habit of keeping on them for no evident reason, until finally they were mostly all able to run screaming away from Van's cracking of the whip.

"Oh! Mine seems to be stuck! Alas!" Legretta lamented completely convincingly. "I shall have to endure the horrors of Van armed with a whip! Go on without me, my comrades!"

"… Come on," Largo said, pulling her free as well.

"No, wait! This could be my only chance to—" The rest of this statement was conveniently muffled as Largo tucked the female God General beneath one arm like the star linebacker he had been during his crazy college bodyguard days (first one to make a "pigskin" joke gets shot and/or awarded a prize) and ran out of the range of Van's whip.

"Hey! What about me?" Guy demanded pulling at his harness. "Luke? Somebody? Oh, come on, this thing's made out of steel, I can't break it myself!"

"You're on your own, sorry," Luke said, ducking a lightning fast whip strike.

"Jade! Why is—?"

"So you wouldn't be able to break free, obviously."

"Onwards!" Van ordered to the only member of his team left, and Guy obediently tried to run, straining against the metal harness. The engine roared to life with a faint church bell undertone, and, the sleigh began to inch along, hovering a few inches off of the ground. "Now!" Van shouted, and the sleigh shot forward, blasting past Guy and then dragging him along by the harness.

"Help!" Guy shouted, not really expecting anyone to pay attention given how things had been going for him. The sleigh, now some ten feet off the ground turned back and flew back over the rest of the group. Suddenly, the entire rig gave a shudder, bouncing Guy about like a very annoyed marionette being operated a puppeteer who was simultaneously affected both by carpel tunnel and being high on caffeine.

"Something's wrong!" Van gasped. "Gailardia! Get free while you can!" With a crack of the whip, the chain binding Guy to the sleigh snapped in two, dropping him to the ground as overhead the sleigh began to turn a midair loop-de-loop. It went on to perform an assortment of random midair maneuvers, which were, by and large, well received, though the overall malfunction received only lukewarm reviews from critics.

"There's not enough Christmas Fonons!" Jade said.

"Of course! Everyone!" Van shouted, hanging upside down as the sleigh corkscrewed over the partygoers a third time. "Sing! Quickly!"

"I'm dreaming of a white Christmas," Jade began, his suddenly deeper voice cutting through the noise of the onlookers and the rapidly deteriorating saving of Christmas. "Just like the ones I used to know…"

"… Jade _would_ be able to sing, too, wouldn't he?" Luke asked.

"Yes, yes, I'm God," Jade said. "However, if this is going to work it's going to take more than one person singing!"

"On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me… a big sack full of money!" Anise belted out.

"Here comes Vanta Claus, here comes Vanta Claus, right down Vanta Claus lane," the God Generals Except for Asch chanted in five-part harmony.

"Children sleeping, snow is softly falling. Dreams are calling… likes the bells in the distance," Ion and Florian sang together.

Natalia gazed lovingly at Asch for a long moment, (prompting a slightly less scary angry glare from him) before finally singing, "Make my wish come true… All I want for Christmas, is—"

"A chaplain in the Army has a collar on his neck. If you don't listen to him, you'll all wind up in Heck!" one of the Order of Lorelei guards who had totally failed to do anything resembling guarding Ion sang. "Oh, I don't want no more of Army life! Gee, Ma, I wanna go—"

"You know it's gotta be _Christmas _music, right?" the guard next to him asked. "It doesn't work otherwise."

"Oh. Well that's just completely unfair! I'm Jewish!" For a moment, everyone present stopped to consider this, then resumed what they had been doing.

Turning to Tear, Luke began, "Baby, it's cold outside."

"But we are outside, and it's not…"

"We're supposed to be singing!"

"But that song is just so…"

"Tear! Your brother's life is at stake here!"

"Oh, right… um… damn it, now I can't think of anything else!" she glared at Luke. "Fine, whatever! I really can't stay…"

"No! You're off-key!" Van shouted as the sleigh careened out of control, spiraling down towards the lower levels of the city. "You're off-keeeeeeeey!" The sleigh suddenly burst into flames, streaking through the air for a second, then all at once exploding into a million burning fragments.

The entire group gazed down upon the still-glowing fireball that had, a moment ago, been an evil mastermind and his latest diabolical plan for seizing control of Christmas. For a moment, not a word was uttered.

"Commandant!" Regret shouted, tears in her eyes.

"If it's any consolation," Guy said, picking himself up from the ground, "it's probably how he would want to go: in some sort of fiery, musical extravaganza/explosion, brought on by some kind of crazy Christmas-themed gadget that was being used to further one of his evil master plans."

"He died doing what he loved," Largo agreed.

"I know…" Regret sniffed.

"Master Van…" Luke said softly. "Damn it, not again! So many things left unsaid… again!"

"What could you possibly have left to say to the man, Replica?" Asch said. "Last time you met him you were trying to _kill _him! Wouldn't it make sense to say everything important to him _then_?"

"Oh, well, yeah, I mean, I covered all of the 'I don't need your approval anymore, I know who I am now!' stuff, but after the fight, I came up with all these great bits of witty banter," he held up some index cards, covered with writing, "and now I'll never have a chance to use any of them… again."

"Give me those!" Asch snatched the cards. "Van GRANTS nothing but evil and misery?"

"Okay, so maybe it's not such a loss after all… it sounded a lot better in my head, though."

"Oh, why don't you just go die?"

"Oh… well… I mean… if you say so… You're the original…" Luke started to walk off. "So um… I'm just gonna go… try to kill myself now… again. Don't… don't try to stop me or anything. I've made up my mind." No one moved. "Right, well…" he turned to walk away again, suddenly stopped. "Alright, why won't anyone try to stop me?"

"Luke, we might have done just that the first few times," Guy explained, "but now it's just… kind of worn off… How many times is this anyway?"

"Let's see…" Jade said as he pulled a full-sized chalkboard from nowhere, and began making tally marks on it. "Hm… well, as you can see, this is the 17th time Luke has threatened to terminate his own miserable existence, and the fourth since we stopped caring."

"Let go of me!"

"Tear, calm down already."

"But Luke's going to—"

"Tear, if you keep getting so worked up every time Luke threatens to kill himself, he'll never learn," Natalia scolded.

"Yeah, Tear, if you're this overprotective already you'll make a horrible mother," Anise added. "Sometimes you've gotta let kids… and teenagers who are actually sort of only like eight years old, mess up so they figure these things out on their own."

"Wh-who said anything about me having—I mean… what does that…?"

"See, look!" Natalia pointed with the arm that wasn't locked around Tear's shoulder. "Now that he's seen that threatening to kill himself won't get him extra attention, he's just going to go blog about it instead."

"… Is it too late to apologize for whatever I did in a past life to merit all of this?" Tear asked.

"Probably." Anise held up her hands in a helpless gesture.

"Okay."

"Speaking of which, aren't you devastated by the fact that Van's dead again?" Natalia said.

"Eh, well… it's not my fault this time, and after personally killing him twice it's sort of lost its impact."

"Ah."

"What's all this?!" Emperor Peony, still decked out in his bling, suddenly appeared at the door to the manor. "Everyone wearing reindeer horns… man, I miss everything! But this gives me a brilliant idea! New theme outfits for everyone! Now, I'm going to need a lot of red ribbon, well, not all that much, actually, but—" the Emperor of Malkuth was cut short as two conveniently placed shovels simultaneously smote him in the back of the head.

"I'll not have my daughter exposed to such things! She's far too young!" Largo and King Ingobert simultaneously roared. Each somewhat taken aback by the unexpected assistance, they stood, staring at each other for a moment, then gave a nod of acknowledgement.

From out in the courtyard, Asch and Natalia whistled innocently. Seeing that this wasn't stopping the others from staring at them, Asch fell back on more tried and true methods, and shot the rest of the gang a glare that… well, to be fair, Asch really doesn't normally look all that threatening, and the fuzzy ears and the antlers really didn't help, but it was a pretty good angry glare, so it more or less worked.

"Man, I'm glad to be getting rid of these…" Asch muttered, reaching for the horns atop his head.

"Actually, um… I kind of… like it…" Natalia said, one foot nervously poking at the ground. "You should keep it."

"This? But it looks ridicu—"

"Keep it!"

"Okay, okay…"

"Well, everyone, seeing as there's nothing left to see out here, shall we go back inside?" Jade suggested.

"J-Just like that?" Legretta said, dumbfounded. "I mean… we're not going to… mourn or… you know, _not _go back to having a party or something?"

"Regret, this is going to be hard for you to hear, so I'm going to say it as gently as I can," Largo said. "_Nobody _else liked Van."

"Oh… okay then… I'll just be out here… wallowing in sorrow…"

"Okay, have fun with that." Everyone began filing back into the party, stepping over the various traps that hadn't been triggered as of yet.

"I know this sounds impossible now," Tear told Legretta. "But someday you'll be able move on, Major Regret. That's the kind of person you are."

"Thanks, Tear. Since there was a time when everyone thought Luke was dead, and since Van was your brother, I get the feeling that you're really the only one who could understand how I feel right now… Well, I mean, other than, like, everyone else in the entire cast, but you're the only one who's actually acting like you care at all, so… Thanks for sticking by me in my hour of need, Tear."

"Tear? Oh, there you are!" Luke said, poking his head out of the manor. "Come on, I need to show you something!"

"I'm trying to comfort Regret here, Luke…"

"Oh. But I finally found my present… I had a box for it and everything…" Luke said, shoulders sagging.

"You did?" Tear's eyes momentarily lit up. "But, I mean… I shouldn't…"

"No, it's alright, Tear," Regret said, placing a hand on the younger girl's shoulder. "You two go and enjoy yourselves. There's no reason anyone else should be miserable just because the love of my life died in a horrible accident that could easily have been avoided if any of you had taking singing lessons like I asked you to."

"Really? Thanks!" Luke said, grabbing Tear by the hand. "Oh, but, um… can I ask you a quick question?"

"What question?" Legretta questioned.

"What the Hell is your name? People keep alternating between 'Legretta,' and 'Regret,' for no apparent reason! Even the author! Which is it?"

"You mean… there's a difference?" the God General said, baffled.

"Of course there's a difference!" Luke shouted. "They're different _words_!"

"Oh. I guess I hadn't noticed," she shrugged.

Silence for a moment, and then, "Yeah, okay, this chapter's done. Come on, Tear." And so the two walked back inside, leaving the grieving and scantily clad warrior entirely alone, except for the author who was actually, himself, trying to find a way to end the scene.

"Right. Wallowing in sorrow, then…"

Tear: Um… I guess I'm supposed to be reading an episode preview…?

Natalia: Tear! That's no way to introduce the next action-packed chapter of the author's dazzling piece of comedic gold-inlaid literary genius!

Tear: Why are you hyping this? All you've done is… pretty much be ignored and also suggest a ridiculous plan to get Legretta and Van together.

Natalia: Not so! I also got to have implied sexual-type… things with Asch.

Tear: … I was leaving that one out.

Natalia: Oh. Okay, then yes, you're right. But Tear, when you're royalty, you learn a little thing called diplomacy.

Tear: The Author isn't going to give you a better part if you say nice things about him. Besides, the characters he likes are the ones who get the worst of it.

Natalia: And what's_ that _supposed to mean?

Tear: N-nothing… just that… you know…

Natalia: I'm certain I don't.

Tear: Well, I mean… for reasons entirely beyond your control, I'm sure… the Author… thinks you're kind of boring and also useless in a fight.

Natalia: What?

Tear: Well, I'm sorry but—

Natalia: I refuse to accept that!

Tear: Aren't we supposed to be… doing the episode preview?

Natalia: Oh, you'd_ like _that, wouldn't you? Way to change the subject, Tear!

Tear: What? No, I mean, it's just… getting kind of long and…

Natalia: That does it, Tear! We're going to settle, once and for all, which of us is the better woman! We'll use the most sacred of the traditional Japanese Anime/Video Game female character competitions: Naked Mud-Wrestling!

Tear: …This is not a good idea for too many reasons to begin to list.

Natalia: Let's go! Right now! You and me, Tear!

Tear: …

Jade: ((Appears from nowhere)) Well, I guess I'd better finish this episode preview, and fast, too, or else I won't be able to sell tickets to the event. ((Ahem)) On the next How the God Generals Replicated Christmas, another member of the cast will DIE. Who will it be? Asch? Ion? Mr. Body? His cousin, Captain Cadaver? Tune in next time to find out! Next time: Of Punch and Also Involving the OTHER Kind of Punch. Awaken your Synchronized Christmas Fon Slots!

_Ending Note: Well, it's been another wonderful installment of How the God Generals Replicated Christmas (I… hope… anyway). Therefore it must be time for another equally wonderful (yeah right) installment of Duo Explains it All, with your host, a Sock Puppet! Yeah, okay, "officially Christmas" is fast approaching and I'm somewhat loopy from the overdose of Christmas movies/specials I watched today. Cut me some slack._

The Title: _The Whole "In something resembling prose" thing is a take on the full title of "A Christmas Carol," which is "A Christmas Carol In Prose, Being a Ghost Story of Christmas."_

Mieu's Happiness Reader: _Implied to be something like the infamous power scanners of Dragonball Z._

More verb/noun confusion than the Aeneid: _Well, as mentioned later in the chapter, Latin poetry has its own weird limitations and techniques, and since Latin is a language in which word order is only important for certain things, if it's all in the same phrase/clause/whatever term the Romans would use, you can have a verb and the subject or the object that it goes with really far away from each other. Point being… the Aeneid is confusing (sometimes, anyway) and the name Tear can easily get awkward when used in an English context._

The heartbeat of the stars themselves: _A reference to the title of the third Zeta Gundam Movie Compilation/20th Anniversary Revival, "Love is the Heartbeat (alternatively, Pulse) of the Stars."_

Half-Moon Love: _Another Zeta Gundam reference, though this was the title of an episode from the actual series. I just love how weird and nonsensical it is, really (and it was "Half-Moon Love" in Engrish, so it's not a translation thing), so I thought I'd use it for one of Mieu's speeches._

Surpassing the impossible:_ Just sort of a general hot-blooded super robot-y thing to say, though it's very Gurren Lagann-ish if I'm to pick on in particular (GL is one of the only honest to goodness Super Robot shows I've ever seen, after all)._

Wait and Hope: _A famous quote from The Count of Monte Cristo, which The Count says on numerous occasions. In fact, that phrase actually the final words of the novel. Which is why it's so frustrating that the Geneon translation of Gankutsuou has it as "Bide Your Time and Hold Out Hope," which I have definitely complained about elsewhere in my fic writing, so I'll leave it at that._

Garfield: _I used to dislike it when people said Garfield wasn't any good anymore, but I just can't continue anymore. Sorry, old friend. I tried to keep the faith alive, but you're really just not that funny lately._

Cacophonous Space Time: _The "title" of Banner of the Stars IV (the novel). I think "Dissonant Space Time," apparently an alternate translation, sounds a hell of a lot better (or "Dissonance in Space Time,"). For the record, Cacophonous means "Loud, noisy, unpleasant-sounding etc." This, plus the way the title sounds makes it one of the weirdest titles ever, in my book. Seriously, you could almost just randomly say it to make yourself seem smart and impress people. Hmm…_

Skill my Heart! Etc.: _Another reference to JAM Project's song "Skill." This was a translation taken from the internet (LyricWiki), which I cannot take credit for. Apologies if that's considered using it without permission, but considering that it's just a translation of what's already there ((shrugs))._

Madsanta: _A joke off of madman, since Van is trying to replace Santa Claus, and also I was just bored of the other things by which I have referred to him. The Lifetime comment was a joke off of "Bad Santa," even though that wasn't remotely related to Lifetime (but Lifetime original movies most of the time are just… yeah…)._

The whip thing:_ A vague Master Badtouch-type reference (counting the fact that Luke and Asch know enough to be afraid when Van has a whip)? You be the judge!_

Jade's "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas": _Well, you know, personally I figure Jade has to have an amazing singing voice, or else my illusion of him as being ridiculously superior to everyone ever will be shattered. Okay, but seriously? Even if it was only out of spite I think he'd be able to sing like Frank Sinatra or, you know, in that vein of guys with deep voices that people really like to listen to. Plus he grew up in the only part of Auldrant where it ever seems to snow (granted that means nothing since there's no weather at all most of the time, but hey…), so it seemed like a fitting song._

Ion and Florain singing "Believe": _Okay, so their voices are nothing like the original singer's, but our Chorus did a version of this song for a holiday concert at one point, and it seemed to work for them, so I figure the Ions could come up with a pretty good version of this. Plus it just seems like the kind of song Ion (VII?) would like, and probably Florian, too (not my insane homicidal version of him, obviously)._

"A chaplain in the Army has a collar on his neck," etc.: _So this is for my fellow MASH fans. It's from the episode "Movie Tonight," where the whole gang ends up singing their own take on "Gee, Ma, I wanna go home!" (not sure if that's the real title), a song about how being the army sucks, basically. It was really just the first thing that popped into my head when I decided that someone needed to interrupt Natalia (poor Natalia). Father Mulcahy for the win!_

Switching between Legretta and Regret: _Probably a lot of you know this one, and it's actually something related to the game, which I don't usually explain, but I think it bears mentioning. The joke here is really that the original version of the character's name was "Re-gu-re-to," which is pretty certainly meant to be the English word "Regret," since Legretta would be "Re-gu-re-ta," in Japanese. (I have heard "Legretto," suggested, but I think the person was thinking of "Alegretto," which is an actual music term/Italian word) Anyway, there's apparently some difference of opinion among fans about the name, so to keep everyone happy and confused, I switch between the two at random ((Nods)). I actually don't mind this particular change just because "Regret," is a lot harder to get away with as an English name compared to, say, "Tear" (Major Regret?), but ((shrugs)). Anyway, couldn't resist making fun of this a bit, so now the fic is far more confusing than it needs to be. Yay!_

_Well, that was… relatively quick and painless, anyway. Benefits of shorter chapters, I guess. Anyhoo, it's past midnight now, so I guess I should be wrapping this up. Thanks for reading this chapter of "How the God Generals Replicated Christmas," and hopefully you'll stick around for future installments even though it won't be the Christmas season anymore. If not, I may need to do a Ver 2.0 of this fic for next Christmas wherein I break up the first two chapters a bit, but we'll see._

_Until next time, Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night._


	4. With Apologies to Mieu

_Author Note: Well, long time no see, all. I return from the land of the dead to bring you more Tales of the Abyss Christmas-related insanity! Nothing like watching the final scene of the game (GOD I can just watch that scene on loop…sort of like the entire last episode of Gurren Lagann) and then obsessing about LukexTear to get the ol' desire to actually work on this back up and running. Well, actually it made me want to write the upcoming LukexTear moments, but at least it put me back in the mood of the game at large, and it got me to write some ideas that I dreamt up almost a year ago, which was extremely gratifying._

_Having said that, I'd just like to dedicate this chapter to Klaus Bandelt, the composer for Pirates of the Carribean without whose contributions, the latter portion of this chapter might never have gotten written. Seriously, PoTC's music had just the right blend of being dramatic and exciting without being too heavy anything. Sometimes writing crack to really sad music works (it's KIND of like meditating under a waterfall. Sorta.), and sometimes you just need some music that... almost sort of kind of fits the mood._

_Oh, and also to the fine folks at the official Namco Tales of Forums LukexTear fanclub, whose efforts in assembling various fanarts were of great help too, inspiration-wise._

Previously, on How the God Generals Replicated Christmas…

"Cut the red wire!" Tear screamed.

"With this…" Luke said solemnly, dragging the dagger through his hair, slicing it off at neck length, "I say goodbye to who I used to be."

"You don't understand!" Jade slammed one fist onto the desk in front of him. "If this planet moves slower than 20 kilometers per second, it will crash into the sun!"

Van smiled, gazing down upon his work. "I call it… Chia-Auldrant."

"LIFE! LIFE, DO YOU HEAR ME?! GIVE MY CREATION LIIIIIFE!" Dist shouted, the wind howling in his ears, lightning crackling all around him.

"Ion, I…" Anise fumbled with the ends of her skirt. "I… I'm pregnant." Everyone stared in stunned silence. "And the father is—"

"Okay, _none _of that happened!" Guy interrupted. "I mean, really… talk about pushing the boundaries of good taste with that last one…"

"And why didn't I get a line?" Natalia said, hands on her hips.

And at that very moment, the chapter title rose up from the depths of the page, silencing any further complaints and beginning our story.

"It's still another few inches away, actually," Legretta said.

"Yeah, and way to make Ion faint right _before _we're supposed to go on," Anise said, the unconscious Fon Master draped over one shoulder. "That was really a great idea."

"We should strike until chapter opening conditions improve," Van said. "We don't have to deal with this kind of shoddy, nonsensical—"

It's (finally)!

**How the God Generals Replicated Christmas**

**Chapter 4: This is a Fight to Determine Who We Are! Because I Have… Amnesia!**

"…and that's why, this time, I'm absolutely certain that nothing can go wrong!" Luke finished, his features animated by excitement, as he led Tear back into the party. At once, everyone in the room froze and perked up their ears, in a manner rather akin to how a herd of gazelle will notice a cheetah bearing down on them with just enough time to spare that the fearsome cat will only be able to catch the old, the diseased, or the particularly stupid.

"Uh… Luke…" Tear said, eying the ceiling like one who expects an imminent horde of dire-locusts to chew through it at any moment. "I'm not sure that you should—"

"Everyone! If I could have your attention for just a second here," Luke called, seemingly oblivious to the fact that most everyone in the room was already watching him—watching him in that way that people will watch a screen filled with words, terrified at the prospect of finding yet another metaphor staring back at them. "Tear," he said, looking straight into her eyes, "I'm sorry this took so long, but here." He pulled a box, wrapped in bright red paper and tied with a white ribbon, out from behind his back and offered it to her. "Merry Christmas."

"Th-thanks Luke," Tear said as she accepted the gift, all too aware of the numerous stares turned in their direction.

Luke eagerly watched her pull open the package, finally saying, just as she opened the lid, "It's—"

"A bunch of strips of fabric?" Tear finished for him. Indeed, what she held in her hand did appear to be a series of somehow interlocked strips of fabric, all in varying widths, that, taken as a whole, looked almost like…

"I believe it's meant to be worn," said Jade, wearing one of his smirkiest smirks for the occasion.

"Luke!" Natalia gasped. Off to one side, Guy was holding a hand over his face, outright refusing to look at the scene, while Anise had collapsed to the floor with laughter. The two Ions were lying there next to her, though they had just collapsed in the conventional sense.

"This wasn't—But I…" Cheeks burning, Luke's eyes narrowed to slits as he realized that there could be only one culprit. "Peony…" he muttered. "But… we left him outside. And unconscious. How did he—? Well, it doesn't really matter how, I guess…" With a sigh, Luke turned to go resume his hunt for the missing present. "I'll be right back… again again."

"Listen, Luke," Tear said. "You really don't have to go through all of this trouble…"

"No!" Luke shook his head. "It wouldn't be right if you got me something and I didn't get you anything. Besides, it'll take more than Jade and Emperor Peony to stop me!"

"But… what I mean is…" Tear said haltingly, eyes locked on the floor. "More than anything… I just wanted to… to…" she paused. "He's… not there anymore, is he?"

"Afraid not," Jade said. "If it's any consolation, you two are making this one of the better Christmases _I've _had."

"Seeing Tear's distraught state, Mieu, Agent of Love™ comes to the sudden realization that time is running out for the young lovers!"

"Mieu? Who said anything about— I mean… not that I don't… but…"

"Mieu flies on, desperately seeking the one man with the power to mend Tear's broken heart! Can their love be saved? Or will our hero's efforts be in vain? Next on Ai no Senshi Mieu: 'Even if you were a demon, I'd love you anyway. Though I'm kind of glad you aren't, because we don't have to go through that whole rape and murder deal, but if you were…' Hurry, Mieu! There are only 363 minutes until the Christmas party ends and Love is destroyed by the radioactive contamination of Despair!"

"This is going to end badly, I just know it…"

"Oh, relax, Tear. The Author hates sad endings, that's why everyone came back to life and then Van died again," Anise explained. "So it won't _end _badly, it'll end really well." She paused for a moment, thinking, "Though it'll probably suck up until that point, but at least the ending is guaranteed to be fine, so you won't care. Eventually."

"… Thanks, Anise. That makes me feel a _lot_ better."

"I'm glad."

"Hm… no one seems to have drunk any of the punch…" Jade remarked idly. "And after I worked so hard on it, too."

"Yes, let's think about this for a minute," Guy said. "_You _worked hard on it."

"I'm afraid I'm completely clueless as to whatever you could possibly mean to imply, Guy."

"Wait, Jade made this?" Dist exclaimed. "Well, I've got to have some, then!" The robot enthusiast snatched the ladle from the punch bowl and hastily filled one of the nearby plastic cups, downing the punch in one gulp. His face lit up, and he happily declared, "Why, it's—!" then suddenly froze. An instant later, he toppled over backwards, stiff as a board.

"Oh dear…" Jade said with all the concern he felt like mustering. Bending down to look at the now prone God General, he added, "Well, I'm afraid he's dead. Looks like cardiac arrest and/or explosion."

"How is that possible?" Luke wondered, taking a momentary break from his never-ending 'I will never rest till then; this I swear, this I swear by the stars!' quest for Tear's present after two minutes of fruitless searching. "I mean, even with you making it, Jade, it's still just punch…"

The group turned their eyes on the bowl. Within the semi-transparent, blood red liquid, swirls of a darker color formed and dissipated seemingly without rhyme or reason. The surface was covered in a faintly luminescent skin from which, every few seconds, clusters of glowing yellow light would float free, forming various musically-themed shapes: quarter notes that burst apart into showers of golden sparks, staffs that wound up out of the bowl until they faded away somewhere off in the distance, even a scale replica of a pipe organ, once or twice.

"Alright, fess up," said Guy, "who spiked the punch to the point where it started giving off random fonon… energy… things?" Everyone else, except for Luke, Ion, and Tear raised their hands. "I'm not sure which is sadder," he sighed, shooting a glance at the room's overabundance of conspirators, "the result, or the fact that it's pretty much which I expected."

"Let me just say," Jade began, "that I am _shocked_ that you all thought I hadn't spiked the punch enough when I made it. Although I am kind of glad that you did," he said, looking again at Dist's body.

"I didn't spike anything! I was just trying to poison Anise so that I could have Ion to myself!" Arietta interjected.

"What? You can't use the punch so you can get Ion! I was using the punch so I could get Ion! That's totally stealing my thunder!" said Anise, hands on her hips.

"Wait, Anise what exactly were you—" Guy began.

"Oh, it was just a drug the Order confiscated a while back, known for making its victims go wild with desire and also increasing their susceptibility to suggestion (and stamina)."

"…Um… th—that's…" Guy said, blinking. Something about the fact that she had smiled all through the previous statement unnerved him in ways he couldn't even begin to describe.

"You tried to _drug _Ion?" Arietta accused. "That's totally unfair!"

"All's fair in love and war!" Anise said. "And I'm not really sure which this counts as between the poisonings and the obvious crushes and the bit where we didn't really kill you, but the point is, it's fair!"

"Like how it was fair that I tried to poison Ion so I could have Anise!" Florian declared. "And I would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for you meddling God Generals and your gay mechanic!"

"Hey, if anyone's meddling, it's us!" Luke interjected. "I mean, we've blatantly interfered with world politics on any number of levels and also with various evil master plans. If that doesn't qualify us as meddling, I don't know what does."

"Wait… why are there two Ions…?" Arietta said, eyes snapping back and forth between Florian and Ion.

"You just noticed?" Luke asked. "Wow, way to miss all of last chapter."

"Shut up! It's a very, very tangled web of jokes, how any one person can be expected to remember them all in an order such that they actually make sense is just beyond—"

"What are you talking about?" said Luke, and Arietta abruptly stopped in mid-defense, freezing where she stood.

"Congratulations," Jade said, tapping the crazy animal girl on the side of the head with one hand and getting absolutely no response. "You've _broken _Arietta."

"Finally!" Largo shouted in relief.

"No. Not like that."

"Aw…"

"Well, that's one less thing to worry about!" Anise said cheerfully.

"You… you tried to poison me?" Ion said, wide eyes gazing towards Florian. "And, you…" he turned to Anise, "you… you… you… You tried to poison me?" he shouted, turning back to Florian. Florian shrugged.

"But, you know what I don't understand?" Luke said. "I mean, other than why people have to die and women and those puzzles where you have to fill in all the numbers from 1 to 9 so they all appear in every box and every row?"

When no one seemed willing to volunteer an answer, he went on. "Well, I mean, it's pretty clear why Jade would spike the punch, and the same goes for Sync and Arietta. King Ingobert I'm willing to chalk up to some bizarre, needlessly convoluted political assassination attempt, and Largo, frankly, I don't think anyone really cares why you did it. Asch, I don't want to know, but I can guess, Florian's reason more or less makes sense aside from the whole 'suddenly turning into a person capable of and willing to commit murder' thing, and Anise… you scare the Hell out of me when you get like that, but I get the general idea. But Natalia, why would _you _spike the punch?"

"Anise took mine!" Natalia complained. "I mean… um… um… Oh, God…" She clutched one hand to her face, afraid to look… well, pretty much anyone in the eye. For a second, the inane babbling of two full-grown men and one low growl that was probably something like inane babbling on the Asch vocal scale were the only sounds that filled the room.

"Natalia! I didn't think you had it in you! I'm so proud!"

"DIST?" the entire group gasped, pointing at the man, who was just now climbing back to his feet. Even Jade. There are certain disappointments that even he can't laugh maniacally in the face of.

"But… but you're supposed to be dead… again!" Luke said.

"Pah, the God Generals NEVER… actually, come to think of it, no one ever dies in a Tales game. Well, except for Asch."

"What?!" demanded Asch.

"Nothing, nothing."

"But how did you survive?" Luke asked.

"Easy! My heart is made out of fontech!"

"It IS?" Guy said, his face lighting up like a needlessly complicated panel of flashing lights and assorted gizmos. "But how did you overcome the problem of rust and wear? Oh, can I see? Can I?"

"Can you see my _heart_?"

"I promise I'll be careful! I'm really good with fontech, just ask anyone!"

"No! Get away from me!" Dist shouted, trying to fend off Guy's eager advance with a Turkey Leg, then turning and running when he realized that his Turkey Leg was missing the vital z at the end that would make it hardcore enough to be used as a weapon.

"Come back!" Guy took off in hot pursuit of the terrified God General. And so, the rest of the group did say "meh," and thus dispersed; and the author saw this and it was far less complicated, and it was… about three out of five for goodness.

"Alright, Ion, since my attempt at poisoning you failed, I guess we'll just have to settle this the old fashioned way," Florian said, getting up in the Fon Master's non-existent grill. "You and me, one on one, to decide things once and for all."

"Fine by me!" And so, the rest of the group did say "well, this looks remotely interesting," and thus reassembled; and the author saw this and it was somewhat more complicated again and he did go "Argh!" and it was somewhat less good than good but really not so bad as bad but more of a moderate good-bad… kind of… thing… Like if scientists were to artificially create the child of Dick Cheny and Mother Teresa and raise it to shoot people in the face and then donate their money to charity.

"No, wait, wouldn't you guys rather… um… um… look at some adorable pictures of a cat with things on top of it or something?" Anise suggested.

"Not until I prove that I'm more worthy of you than this… other knock-off." Florian cracked his knuckles, wincing as he somehow managed to injure himself in the process.

"Ion! You're the sensible one who didn't try to poison anybody! Please, don't fight!" Anise all but begged.

"I'm sorry, Anise, but Florian will never leave us alone unless I do this now."

"But we can—"

"Anise, this is probably the only manly thing I'm ever going to do, so just let me get on with it, okay?" Ion put his fists up in front of him, taking a few practice swings.

"Well," Anise said, thinking. "Actually, if there was just going to be the one time, I was kind of hoping—"

"Shut up, Anise," Luke interrupted. "I want to watch this. I mean, how often will you ever get to see a religious icon duke it out with his clone?" Anise glared at him with a look that could be a metaphor unto itself.

The two Ion replicas circled each other slowly, arms at their sides like gunslingers in some sort of western showdown. Suddenly, Ion's arms darted upwards, his hands clasped together and pressed against his chest. A radiant smile filled his face, and his eyes filled with giant shojo sparkles. Puppies materialized out of nowhere, floating in the air around his head.

"No!" Anise shouting, seeing Florian starting to assume a similar pose. "They're trying to out-cute each other! Shield your eyes, everyone, just one look could be enough to kill you outright!" Obediently, the entire assembled body covered their eyes as our cute-filtered cameras continued filming (from a safe distance, of course) the two Ions smiling sweetly at each other with intent to kill.

Suddenly, there was the sound of a door opening. "Hey, everyone, sorry I'm late, but I… Awwwww! It's so—GACK!" the man choked in mid-sentence, the all-too familiar thud of someone collapsing on the floor of Fabre manor filling the air.

The group spun, and Guy, momentarily abandoning his chase of Dist, cried, "Pere!" In despair Guy dashed towards his old friend and knelt beside him.

"Guy…?" Pere said, struggling to keep his head upright. "Everything's so dark…"

"Pere…"

"Don't… worry… Guy…" the elderly man gasped. "Nobody… dies in a Tales game…" His head collapsed backwards, and he was silent. "Except for Asch," he added as an afterthought, pulling himself back partly upright. Then his body went limp, and he once more fell back to the floor.

"Guy," Luke placed a hand on his friend's shoulder. "If it's any consolation, he died for absolutely no reason."

"Yeah… I know…"

"Also we seem to have a thing going where no one really dies, like he said."

"Right," Guy said, sniffing.

"And it's nice and warm out here, isn't it?"

"Right. Wait, what?"

"Just something for the yaoi fangirls," Luke shrugged.

"Oh, okay. I'm gonna go chase Dist, now."

"You do that."

"What, that's it? No big dramatic speeches or drawn-out depression or… drilling statues somehow?" Dist said, ducking out of the way as Guy charged at him. "I mean, aren't you guys at least going to make a commemorative AMV set to something by Linkin Park?"

"Oh, you're just complaining because you're getting chased by someone who wants to literally rip your heart out," Anise accused.

"Yes. Yes I am." How Dist managed to say this calmly while running at full tilt remains a minor mystery that no one particularly cares about the answer to to this day.

"Well, that's taken care of…" Luke said. "Oh, and Tear, I found your present again." Turning away from Tear, Luke checked the Selenias carefully, just to ensure that they were actually there this time and not some sort of duplicate built upon a foundation of lies and deceit and probably some sort of fontech. Satisfied, he turned back and extended the gift, saying "So… uh… here you—" Luke stared at the tiny robot, really more of a ball with arms, which now sitting on the hand that had held the Selenias a second ago, and which was currently engaged in clamping its crude mouth down on his thumb. His expression was not so much one of surprise as of not surprise. "… Okay, how did Dist do that when he's… I mean… that shouldn't be…"

"Luke, really, it's okay," Tear said. "Please, please quit while you're less behind than you could be."

"No, no, I'm on this, don't worry. Sooner or later we'll run out of people who can swap out gifts using some sort of ninja magic." Luke trudged off to look for his gift for the fourth time that evening.

"Wow, Tear, Luke's pretty dedicated. I mean, he's an idiot, since everyone knows that the one thing you never run out of is ninjas, but at least you'll never have to worry about him not paying attention to you. Unless he's trying to do something for you, then you may as well not exist, but…"

"Anise, please shut up."

"Hey, don't take it out on me that your romantic plans for the evening are going awry! _My _one true love is locked in mortal combat that just so happens to involve puppies and also the opening theme from Chobits, so of the two of us…"

"Anise!"

"Ack! Tear, trying to hit me with a Turkey Leg won't help matters," Anise said matter-o-factly. Tear's second lunge for the smaller girl evidenced a great deal of not caring. Anise ducked the inbound poultry, and, pressing her hands together, shouted "Secret Technique: Mieu no Jutsu!" A puff of smoke obscured the scene, and suddenly Mieu was floating where Anise had been standing a moment before, having arrived just in time for Tear to send him sailing into the refreshments table.

"Ah! Mieu! I'm sorry!" she dashed over.

"Fear not, Tear, Mieu, Agent of Love™ has seen far worse poultry-related injuries in his never ending quest for truth, justice, and all that comes with a little ribbon on top," Mieu explained, staggering between the plastic cups and the highly suspect-looking potato salad.

"Does that include—"

"No, Florian, that doesn't include you."

"Aw…"

"Realizing that his time is still running short, Mieu, Agent of Love™ takes flight once again in search of—"

"Hey, I'm back!" Luke called. "Dist apparently couldn't hide the gift very well since he was running away from Guy."

"Ah, I always was the best at hiding other people's gifts and not being chased by strange Hodian men…" Jade mused.

"Jade makes an astounding revelation! What tragedy lurks in his mysterious past? Next, Ai no Senshi Mieu: The Genuine Truth that Exists in the Bottom of a Locked File Cabinent in the Dark Basement with No Stairs Behind a Door that says 'Beware of Leopard.' Watch it or else!"

"What is it with all you people from Keterburg pulling this same prank on me over and over again, anyway?" Luke demanded of Jade. "I mean, what did I ever do to deserve having these—" Luke held out the Selenias to Tear, "replaced… with…" He took a deep breath. "It's… it's a Nephry Ball, isn't it?"

"Tragedy strikes! Luke's gift, once again misappropriated by the mysterious forces of darkness, is nowhere to be found. With time running out on the young couple, the moon will crash into the earth in either three days or three weeks! Their epic journey to the center of the earth and also space must begin before the bees which blot out the sun can summon the four giants to—"

"Yeah… but listen, Luke, I still want to give you this…" Tear started fumbling with her robes, looking for something evidently kept in one of her not-pockets.

"But… but… but Nephry said she couldn't come…" Luke stammered, his eyes unfocused to the same degree that he wasn't focused on what Tear had just said. "How… how…" he stumbled away, muttering to himself.

"Ah, I found it!" Tear looked up, and, pulling a small, wrapped package from nowhere, promptly exclaimed, "Damn it!"

"Such language, Tear," Jade admonished.

"Considering that this is partly your fault and probably your idea, I don't see how you get to complain."

"So that's how you deal with your problems? By pushing the blame off on others?"

"But it really is—! I mean… but you…"

"Tear is left stammering in confusion! What is the truth that she has been concealing for so long? The secrets revealed will rock the whole of Auldrant to its core, probably causing some sort of crazy thing with the Miasma again, on the next—"

"Mieu! Stop narrating everything!"

"Aw, but Tear!" Mieu pleaded.

"Yes, but Tear!" Jade added.

Tear heaved a sigh and turned to follow Luke, walking past the two Ions, still locked in mortal cute-based combat, though now somewhat less lethal to passerby since someone had had the presence of mind to throw a tablecloth over the pair of them.

"Hey, Luke, I've been meaning to ask you about this giant pile of gifts over here… what is it?" Anise said, staring up at a veritable tower of brightly wrapped packages, reaching towards the ceiling and up through one of the holes Jade had somehow opened in the roof.

"But if she had a giant version of one of those snow catapults that fired projectiles that could phase through walls and calculated the distance just right…" Luke muttered, drawing some sort of complex diagram in front of him as he walked by. "No, no…" he shook his head, "that would never work, the ball to air ratio is all wrong. Then again, if she weighs the same as a duck then the swallows just might—"

"Luke!" Anise yelled.

"Huh? Oh, the pile of gifts? That's just the stack of semi-mandatory tributes to me from the citizens, what with my being royalty and all." Luke shrugged, "Though for some reason I always get like, 10 copies of whatever latest album by the BiNAh H8rs."

"Ouch. Listening to any _one _of their songs would make you want to kill yourself," Anise shuddered. "Though the promotional black tallit they throw in are very nice. Have you considered the possibility that it's actually a carefully disguised assassination attempt?"

"No, but my dad's always looking for a reason to do something completely unreasonable, so I'll mention it to him."

"Hm… how many do you think there are this year, Luke?" Natalia said.

"There must be OVER NINE THOUSAND!" Anise shouted, hands lifted towards the tower of presents.

"… What are _talking _about?" Luke asked. "There's nowhere near that many!"

"Yeah, Anise, even _I _only get two or three thousand at most, and I'm the princess."

"Well, excuuuse me, Princess! Not everyone in the Baticul Royal Family could pull off such a short skirt," Luke said, implanting dozens of mental images that you will never be able to unsee, mwahahahahahahah! Hahah. Hah. Ahem…

"Luke!"

"Well, um… there are over nine hundred?" Luke shook his head. "Alright, well… I know there are more than nine… Hold on, I'm all over this… one… two…"

"I still can't believe you'd make such a crude… well, okay, I believe it, but I'm not happy about it…" Natalia amended, glaring at the protagonist.

"Well, it's true!"

"It is n—well, yes it is…" Natalia admitted. "But the implication is nothing short of slander! I've done a lot for the people of Kimlasca!"

"Especially the men."

"Luke!"

"So you only dress like that on the off-chance that you happen to run into Asch, then?"

"Luke! Asch isn't—well, he is your original, but even so, Asch wouldn't… I mean…"

"What's all this about m…" Asch stopped short as he approached the scene, staring at the veritable graveyard of innocent wrapping paper before him. "Replica, what the Hell is this?"

"Gifts from the people, no doubt acquired through coercion and false promises!" said Natalia.

"Actually we were saving those for when Kimlasca advances enough to become a democracy/republic-type thing."

"And just what were you planning on _doing _with all this junk?" Asch demanded.

"Well, actually," Luke said, becoming at once more serious, "I was thinking I'd give them to you, Asch. I mean, they're for 'Luke fon Fabre,' and technically that's you. Besides, I stole seven Christmases from you already."

And what happened then? Well, in Baticul they say, that the glare on Asch's face got slightly less glare-y that day.

"Wow, that's… surprisingly decent of you, idiot piece of dreck replci—um… I mean, Luke," Asch said, taken aback by the sudden gesture, and emoting quite a good deal more than was his habit (anger notwithstanding). Even Natalia's face had softened somewhat, though she was still trying to be mad that, of the various clones that always seemed to be hanging about, Luke was the first to comment on her choice of outfit.

"These past seven Christmases with Van have been just dreadful," Asch went on. "Every year it's the same: 'We have to destroy the Corporations before they suck all the meaning out of Christmas!' And then he carves the roast beast but he's so fired up about the evils of the Corporations that he burns it to a crisp with a fonic arte. And the man gives out I.O.U.'s as Christmas presents! I'm supposed to be his right hand man in the new world order four or five times now. It's horrible."

"Wait… you got to spend Christmas with Master Van?!" Luke all but whined. "That's not fair!"

"Were you _listening,_ Replica? I just told you that Christmas with Van is a nightmare!"

"But you were with Master Van on Christmas!" Luke persisted. "And now that he's dead again, I'll never have that chance! Forget this, I'm taking my presents back."

"What? You can't do that!" Asch shouted, his old glare returning after a two-minute hiatus. "You said it yourself: they're marked for 'Luke fon Fabre.' That's _me_. You're just a replica!"

"Hey, we already proved in mortal combat—which is by far the best way of proving things—that I'm my own person!" Luke stopped, realizing what he'd just said. "But I'm _also_ Luke fon Fabre!" he added hastily.

"I was Luke fon Fabre before you were even born!" Asch pointed out in a completely accurate fashion.

"Yeah, but I'm the _current_ Luke fon Fabre!" said Luke. "And besides, I think we've already determined that I'm better at it, fulfilling prophecies and then unfulfilling them-wise."

"That was just because of interference by Van!"

"_Everything _is because of interference by Van!"

"So you admit to not winning on your own merits?"

"What? No! I didn't say that! You wanna go?" Luke shouted, reaching back for his sword, letting his hand slide into place around its grip.

"I thought you'd never ask," Asch said, taking hold of his own weapon.

They stood there, facing each other, for an awkwardly-long moment, as if waiting for some unseen cue to begin their fight. Sort of like they were stuck there until something in particular happened. Something that was taking a fairly sizeable chunk of time.

Then there came a noise like shattering glass, and Guy shouted something about being really sorry, and the battle began.

The sound of ringing steel filled the air as the rivals drew forth their weapons. With a flourish, Luke brought his up and in front of him in a fighting stance. The white, vaguely rectangular object sagged a bit towards the floor, somewhat ruining the defensive properties of the stance, but he was never really big on defense anyway. Asch stood opposite him, staring at Luke down the point of his own rectangle, though this was hampered by the fact that it, too, was losing the battle with gravity.

"Wait a minute, there's something wrong here," Luke said, staring at the object in his hand.

"You mean, the fact that our swords have been replaced with pillows?" Asch offered.

"Actually, I was thinking the lack of dramatic theme music, but now that you mention it…"

"Why are they holding pillows?" Natalia asked of no one in particular.

"Well, we sort of thought this might happen," Anise said in place of no one, who was nowhere to be found at the moment. "So we took the precaution of making sure that they wouldn't _actually _kill each other."

"Wait, you guys did this? Well, where are all of our various swords, then?" Luke demanded of Anise. "We can't have a big dramatic fight with pillows!"

"I! WILL! MAKE! THOSE! WORDS! YOUR! LAST! REPLICAAAAAA!!" Asch screamed, flecks of spittle flying from his mouth as he shook his head back and forth; he charged towards Luke, pillow raised high above his head.

Luke barely managed to raise his own pillow in time to parry the blow, and when their pillows met it was with a sound like a thousand feathers falling to the ground. The shock of the impact ran down Luke's arm to his shoulder as he forced Asch's blow aside, then came back with a two-handed sweep at his original's head. Asch nimbly ducked the attack and swung at Luke's feet, intending to knock him down, but in actuality only managing to pound away at his boots for a few seconds like the world's most ineffective lumberjack.

"Wait! Luke! Asch! Stop fighting!" Tear called, running over to the scene.

"Oh, don't worry so much, Tear," Anise said. "They're just having a pillow fight. How could they possible hurt each other with pillows?"

Tear looked at the small girl blankly for a second. "They know how to use _magic_."

Anise blinked twice, then smacked herself in the forehead. "I _knew _we were forgetting something."

"Fang blade!" Luke shouted, swinging his pillow down towards Asch, who sidestepped the attack. The pillow smashed against the ground with an audible crack, and as Luke drew his weapon back up to block a thrust from Asch, it left several feathers behind, sticking straight into the stone floor.

"Tear, you've got to do something!" Natalia shouted.

"Me?" Tear stammered.

"Luke listens to you! Mostly when I say something to Asch he just looks a little less angry for a few minutes."

"But if we just get Luke to stop, won't Asch keep on attacking him?" Tear asked.

"Um… no, no I don't think that would happen," Natalia said, her eyes shifting back and forth sneakily. Tear glared at her.

"Well, either way we should do something, or someone's gonna get hurt!" Anise reminded them.

"Actually, I wouldn't be so sure about that," Guy said, pointing towards the melee as he ran past, still in pursuit of Dist. The rest of the gang turned their eyes back towards the fight at Guy's prompting.

"Rending Fang Blade!" Asch shouted and slashed at Luke. Luke leapt out of the way, the momentum of Asch's attack keeping him going, as he launched into an extensive thrust-punch-upwards slash combo that was aimed in the complete wrong direction, and proceeded to carry him some distance from where Luke actually was.

"You know, I've always wondered why they do that," Natalia admitted.

"It's the secret technique of the Albert style!" Luke said hastily as he countered another of Asch's swings with one of his own. "'Continuous attacking in the wrong direction!'" He leapt over a low swing, then continued, "It lures the enemy into a false sense of security by giving them a perfect opening to attack with absolutely no drawbacks!"

"Hah! I knew the Sigmund style was better!" Guy said as he followed Dist back past the battle.

"And anyway, I didn't say it had to be one of _them _who got hurt," Anise pointed out.

At that very moment an unfortunate servant emerged from behind the stack of presents and was, unfortunately, run through by a misplaced Sonic Pillow-Thrust. The same servant collapsed to the ground, saying, "Oh alack! I am slain!" Luke and Asch immediately stopped fighting and stared down at the bleeding corpse.

"Wait, I thought we weren't having anyone die in this fic?" Anise said. "The author can't just change the rules like that!"

"Well, Tear?" Natalia asked.

"Ah… I guess I can give it a shot," she said, shrugging. "But I'm _not_ saying, 'Pipiru piru piru pipiru pi.' …Except to say that I'm not going to say it."

"A-actually I'm not dead yet," the not-corpse said from the floor. "Though I could use some healing, if you don't mi—"

"Okay, never mind, then," Luke said, whirling to aim a chest-high cut at Asch. The long-haired man blocked it easily, and the two resumed their most deadly of pillow fights.

"Tear, can't you just put them to sleep or something?" Guy asked, making his third lap around the interior of the room as Dist scrambled to stay ahead of him.

"Well, there are the Christmas Fonic Hymns that only work during Christmastime," Tear said. "But I don't know if I should—"

"Oh? What new entertainment is this?" Jade said, strolling over casually.

"Okay, I'll do it." Tear took a deep breath, and clasped her hands together. Closing her eyes, she felt the sudden rush of energy that came from the Seventh Fonon, and the decidedly gingerbread aftertaste of the Christmas Fonon. For a moment she just let the power build; then, she opened her mouth, and sang, "Silent night, holy night. All is calm, all is—"

"Slag Assault!" Asch called, and there was the sound of rocks leaping from the ground and into the air, and it was completely out of time with the music and the meter got all mixed up and Tear forgot what the next note was momentarily and the spell fizzled.

"All is—" she tried to resume where she'd left off, but to no avail. "All—" she stopped as the noise of the battle once again rose, drowning out her voice. "Oh, damn it. ALL IS CALM!" she shouted, turning on Luke and Asch with a look that could and did cause full-grown ligers to slink away with their tales between their legs (something which is rather hazardous for ligers, and caused them to trip several times until they decided it was easier to just stay down and slink away via crawling).

Asch and Luke, meanwhile, promptly stopped fighting again, stood straight up, and had to fight back the impulse to salute.

"Wow, Tear, I never knew you had it in you," Anise said, looking up at the healer in awe. Tear said nothing, just kept staring at Luke and Asch, albeit with slightly diminished intensity. "You—you know… the whole… shouting… at the top of your lungs… thing…" Anise continued, rapidly becoming uneasy. "Uh… Tear?"

"I said '_silent_ night!'" Tear said, shifting her gaze to the younger girl. "SILENT! SI—" she was cut off as Anise reached up and slapped her across the face. For a moment she remained quiet, as her features resumed their more normal, less scary appearance. "Thanks, Anise," she said at length.

"What was… that?"

"Oh, I just really hate it when someone talks over a song I'm singing," Tear shrugged.

"You know…" said Anise, "I was always sort of curious why you weren't in the Order's choir group…"

"So…" Asch whispered to Luke, "on top of the roof, five minutes, we can finish this?"

"Why on top of the roof?" Luke whispered back.

"Well, we've got no swords and no music. We ought to at least fight someplace high up."

"Good call," Luke said, nodding in approval.

"Hmm… even with the interruption, it looks like your song wasn't entirely without effect," Jade said, his eyes betraying the series of lightning-quick calculations that were no doubt taking place in his head. Following his gesturing hand, Anise and the others turned to see a tablecloth, draped over two bodies that had fallen to the floor.

"Wait, wait, don't move. I'll check to make sure it's safe." Anise approached the once-again unconscious Ions, and carefully peered beneath the tablecloth, keeping low to the ground so as to minimize the exposure. "We'd better leave the tablecloth," she said, replacing it. "They're still giving off cute levels of around 2.5 Kilo Hello Kitties. You can tell by the slightly more tasteful but still noticeable shojo sparkles."

"But when they wake up, won't they just go back to fighting each other?" Natalia asked.

"I believe one of Tear's Christmas Fonic Hymns might be able to take care of that." Jade said in a carefully measured tone.

"Huh? Well, yes, there is one that would stop them from physically attacking each other, but…"

"Tear!" Anise accused, and practically pounced on the healer. "Why didn't you say something sooner?"

"Well, I just…" she started. "I didn't want to start using fonic artes in the middle of Luke's house without it really being necessary, and the Christmas Fonon sometimes does weird things and—"

"And you were too busy thinking about Luke," Jade offered, in a manner that could be described as helpful.

"And I was too busy thinking about—What? N-no, that wasn't… Really, Anise, that had nothing to do with…"

"It's okay, Tear. You can make it up to me later," Anise said, beaming. Tear sighed and gave a slight nod of defeat.

"But Jade, I thought you _wanted _the Ions to keep fighting," said Natalia. "To run some sort of illicit gambling operation. Why would you suggest how to make them stop?"

"You thought I was serious?" Jade said, one hand over his heart, as if he had been wounded. "Such naiveté… Of course I wouldn't do anything that profited off of the suffering of our dear friends! Frankly, I'm disappointed that you think so little of me," he went on, shaking his head. "And besides which, even if someone were to run such a gambling operation, the fact that the arte only prohibits direct attacking simply means that the Ions would need to get creative, adding another dimension entirely to their respective odds. But really, who would want to do something like that?"

"Oh Jade! I'm sorry!" Natalia gasped. "I should have known better than to suspect you."

Tear allowed herself one quick glare at the Necromancer, a look such as Anise's glare mentioned earlier in this chapter; then she tapped out a quick rhythm with her foot, hummed a bar or two, and began to sing, "Donna nobis pacem, pacem. Do—nna no—bis pa—chem. Donna…" and so on and so forth. Note the particularly correct use of an ellipsis.

"…How on earth does Tear manage to sing in a round all by herself?" Natalia wondered aloud—in a hushed voice, so as not to disturb Tear—as a second, then a third set of voices joined the song.

"I'm still waiting on how she got that organ in the middle of Tataroo Valley," Guy whispered, dashing past the others and then vaulting over the unconscious Ions as he doggedly remained on Dist's tail. The glint in his eyes as he blew by seemed to suggest that he suspected some sort of fontech.

"It's only a band of traveling, invisible musicians," said Jade, unimpressed.

"What?" Anise said, one eyebrow raised.

"Really?!" cried Natalia at the same time.

"Yes. They follow her around all the time, actually." He shrugged.

"Oh my!" Natalia said, her face turning slightly red.

"No way."

"Well, not to brag," Jade said, in a tone that indicated the exact opposite, "but I _am_ the only person in this room who magically altered his own eyes." There was no argument from the others on that count.

"All right, I'm done," Tear said as the music faded away. She turned back towards the others, then suddenly caught herself. "Um… guys? Where did Asch and Luke go?" Met only by puzzled and concerned glances, and one devious one, Tear muttered, "Oh, no…"

Meanwhile, a titanic clash was taking place between two men who had quite a lot in common. The first phase was the stare-down. They stood, gazing into each other's eyes, for what seemed an endlessly long period of time. They did not move, or speak, they simply stood there, their faces set like granite, as the tension mounted. The weight of the moment did not escape them. There was more at stake here than either of them cared to admit, and when the battle began, it could well be decided in an instant.

At last, the silence was broken:

"So…" said Largo.

There was a long pause as the God General's words faded away. "So…" said King Ingobert.

And again the silence returned as if it had never left. And again it was shattered, defiantly, "Sooo…" Largo began.

"So," the king's reply was concise.

"So?"

"So!"

"…So…"

"So…"

Meanwhile, Luke and Asch stood atop the roof of the building, staring at each other across the vast expanse of marble and places where marble should have been but wasn't and several stray presents that had fallen off of the pile, which reached up and out of the roof off to their right. Neither dared to take their eyes from the other, and only dared to blink when they were fairly sure the other really had to blink as well.

It was most likely this last bit that accounts for the excessive eye watering that had taken place by the time Asch said, "So…" There was a long pause. "We're up here. It's been five minutes."

"Yeah. Let's do this, then," said Luke, raising his pillow in a fighting pose.

At this point, a brief interruption in narrative is required to describe the scene, as both our combatants have flat out refused to notice it. From the top of Fabre manor, looking out over the side, the entire city of Baticul spread out like an enormous wedding cake, its already numerous lights augmented by the Christmas decorations that hung everywhere secularism and questionable, but not necessarily awful, taste could put them. (Readers are asked to note that the above simile is in no way meant to cast aspersions with regard to the fact that Luke dresses primarily in white and Asch in black, and that they are standing at the zenith of this alleged wedding cake. Really.)

A light breeze disturbed the evening, giving the air a bit of a chill, especially at the height at which we find ourselves. It was just enough wind to produce a slightly dramatic swishing effect, but not enough to be particularly distracting—perhaps the only condition that was ideal for the fight that was about to begin. The wind _has _been known to break the picket line just to spite the other fighting conditions. Overhead, the moon hung about like a party guest who finds themselves witness to a rather awkward situation and is looking for a convenient time to run off, but is afraid that they'll be stuck where they are for quite some time.

As if eager to make up for the delay, Luke suddenly launched himself forward, winding up an enormous, over the shoulder swing. But Asch was ready, and he leapt back, the blow missing his face by mere centimeters, even catching his hair, slightly. He twisted out of the way, and let the replica's momentum carry him forward, then took a slash at Luke's back, only to be met by an awkward, upside-down block that checked his swing. Their pillows stayed locked; Luke twirled around, putting all his weight behind the mass of feathers and cloth, thrusting Asch back and away with a final definitive push.

Asch's feet left the ground for a moment as Luke's sudden burst of strength overwhelmed him, but then he skidded to a stop, only to be met with the sight of Luke charging him once again, pillow already raised. His swordsman training told him instantaneously the error of his ways, like a really obnoxious teacher (his training did come from Van): his guard was down, and Luke was too close. There was no time to block, and even trying to dodge would still result in a glancing blow. There was simply no way to avoid the pillow, even now descending towards him. No way except…

"Candy Cane Thrust!" Asch shouted and drove his pillow forwards. He felt a rush of energy, and the faintest taste of gingerbread, and an enormous, red and white candy cane shot from the tip of his pillow. It plowed into Luke's stomach, his own charge driving him into the blow, bending him nearly double over the candy cane's hooked tip. The deadly cane didn't stop there, though, it drove forward, shooting like a festive missile away from Asch, hurling Luke back through the air until finally he slipped off and fell to the ground some yards away.

Asch lost no time following up on his attack. He dashed forward and readied his pillow to slam down on the replica's prone form. He drew closer; his progress seemed almost painfully slow even though he was running at top speed, until he was nearly upon his target, when suddenly…

"What the HELL was that?" Luke demanded, now sitting upright, and looking most cross.

"What was what?" said Asch, all thoughts of smashing his clone's head against the ground with a pillow momentarily shoved aside by confusion.

"The candy cane… sword… thing!" Luke said, waving his hands in front of him in an utterly incomprehensible attempt to mimic the dimensions of the thing he was talking about.

"You moronic dreck, you didn't _know _that we were fighting in a Field of Christmas Fonons?"

"Christmas Fonos produce Fields?"

"Why wouldn't they?"

"…And they make your attacks Christmas-themed?"

"Yes, yes you idiot!" Asch all but screamed, his hands engaged in furious up and down gestures which dragged the pillow along with them. "What is so hard to grasp about—"

"Tinsel Cannon!" Luke bellowed, and swung his pillow upwards, squarely into Asch's gut. Clouds of tinsel, in all its many shades and hues, had materialized around the pillow, and some splintered from the group, driving themselves into Asch's torso and lifting him from the ground. Others still clung to the weapon, leaving a vibrant, Technicolor trail behind it as Luke brought it around and thrust it at Asch's chest, left vulnerable by the first blow. Now tinsel flew from the pillow in a seemingly endless stream, blasting the dark-clad man backwards in a wide, excessively colorful arc. As the attack's momentum died and he felt himself falling to the ground, Asch tried to twist about, but only succeeded in plowing his left shoulder into the stones of the roof.

"Oh, so _that's_ how it is, huh?" said Asch, as he climbed back to his feet, ignoring the dull ache already emanating from his chest the way some people ignore spam (in either of its forms). "Fine, then." He turned towards Luke, who was also back upright, and, clenching one fist, intoned, "Rending Candy!" A burst of colorfully wrapped, colorfully colored candies burst into being around his fist, then suddenly took off as he punched in Luke's direction, tearing through the evening air. The flight of the candies gave Asch just enough time to really appreciate the look of surprise on Luke's face before they smashed into it, nearly toppling him over.

Clutching at his face, Luke said, "Ow! Hey, there were jawbreakers in there!"

"Is your jaw broken?" asked Asch.

"No."

"Damn. Rending Candy!" he called again, and another blast of empty calories knocked the replica for a loop.

"That was uncalled for!" Luke protested.

"No," said Asch solemnly. "That was payback for earlier. _This_ is uncalled for." He leapt high into the air, and with a yell that caused nearby bats to veer wildly off course from sheer sonic overload, shouted, "BURNING STUFFING!" He dropped to earth with a mighty kick—it was nowhere near Luke, but it didn't need to be. Flames and scalding celery, bread cubes, chicken broth, and butter erupted from the ground in torrents, leaping high into the sky in a swirling inferno which was also rather pleasantly fragrant.

A moment passed during which Asch could see nothing but the side dish he had invoked on all sides, and the flames which heaved them into the air. And then it was over, the roar of the fire died down, and was replaced with the pop and sizzle of superheated ingredients, and everywhere there was smoke. There was no sign of Luke, and for a second he thought that surely the attack had been enough to finish him.

Then, all at once the hairs on the back of his neck stood up, and Asch whirled about just in time to see Luke burst through the smoke with a massive leap. For a second he seemed to hang in midair, moving so slowly as to be barely noticeable. One arm, cocked back far over his head, held the pillow, which began to glow with an eerie purple light. Though everything else in his demeanor seemed wild and reckless, his eyes were strangely focused, staring right at Asch. And then he was upon him.

Asch raised his pillow in defense. Luke let out a roar and his arm came crashing down. The two pillows crashed against each other—purple energy crackled around them, bolts of lightning leaping out towards anything else nearby. Bright light shone, and the smoke blew outwards from the point of impact. Beneath Asch's feet, the stone roof of Fabre Manor began to crack and shatter under the force.

And somewhere, a glass ball dropped. Then another dropped, chasing after it.

There came a ripping sound, and then feathers exploded everywhere as Luke's pillow tore clean through Asch's. The swing carried through nearly to the ground, and Asch went flying backwards as Luke landed awkwardly on the now-uneven stone. Asch felt his shoulders hit the ground, then skip off; he flipped around, and now he slid across the stone on his front, chin dragging along, teeth slamming together with each tiny bump and crevice. At last he came to a stop. The taste of blood was in his mouth, and his already-bruised chest was now screaming at him in irate agony.

Spitting out a mouthful of bloody saliva, Asch staggered back to his feet, if it could be called such. He was slumped, and looked ready to collapse again at any moment. His hair had abandoned its normal, tame state and was now a messy cloud. One leg didn't want to bend, and the other didn't want to be straightened, causing him to adopt a posture made famous by the henchmen of mad scientists.

"Asch," Luke said, facing him, "you've got no weapon, and even if you did, you're in no condition to keep fighting. Give up."

"S-screw you!" Asch shouted back. "Who are you to tell me to give up, you worthless piece of dreck! I'm just getting started!" From his belt, the battered viscount pulled a slender twig, with leaves of dark green sprouting from all along it.

"Is that…?"

"Mistletoe, yes," Asch said, a wild look in his eyes. "It's Van's replica mistletoe, actually, composed entirely of seventh fonons. With this," and as he spoke, the mistletoe began to emit a bright white glow, "I'll be able to kick your ass once and for all!"

"Wait, Asch, what are you going to—" Luke began, before a jumble of loud, atonal notes burst from the mistletoe. At once it turned transparent, almost crystalline, and now it was shining with brilliant light.

"Mistletoe Saber!" shouted Asch. Beams of light shot from the mistletoe in response to his cry, and they wound themselves around him in a wide circle, glowing brighter and brighter until…

_SKREEEEEEEE--BOOM! _The Mistletoe exploded with light and a sound like a five year old's first violin lesson. The brilliant glare was everywhere, and Luke had to cover his eyes for a moment. When the clamor died down, and he could see again, a lone figure stood at the epicenter of the explosion. The stone beneath his feet was turned dark by the blast, and he himself was charred black from head to toe, for all the difference it made. His hair, still mostly retaining its red color, stuck out straight back from his head, where the explosion had blown it and his singed hair gel kept it still. He gave a slight cough, expelling soot and dust from his mouth.

"Looks like… I got a little carried away," Asch said softly. "Replica… I leave the Christmas Party… to you…" And with that, he collapsed to the ground.

"Asch!" Natalia screamed, dashing onto the roof just in time to witness this final moment. She ran to his fallen body, immediately checking his injuries. "Luke, how could you?"

"Wha—Hey, he did that himself!" Luke said. "The mistletoe blew up in his face!"

"You didn't have to be so rough on him!"

"On HIM? He was beating the crap out of _me _up until just now!" Luke pointed at his bruised face, for all the good it would do with Natalia utterly absorbed in checking over Asch. "And like I said, I had nothing to do with that last bit!"

"Luke," said Tear, walking up next to him, "I think what Natalia means is that, if you two keep fighting each other to the death, eventually one of you is going to… well, die."

Luke blinked, and stared at her, as sudden understanding dawned. "You're right, Tear," he said. "If we keep fighting like this it's only a matter of time before one of us gets killed. So there's only one thing to do… Kill Asch!"

"What? Luke that's not what I said—" Tear began

"I know, but Tear, Asch and I are forever linked by the bond of being replica and original. As long as we're both alive, we'll never be able to stop fighting," Luke said.

"And this will be different from every _other_ sibling relationship how, exactly?" Tear asked.

"Well… uh…" Luke scratched the back of his head for a moment. "Look, I just really feel like I need to kill Asch right now, okay? Why is everyone making such a big deal out of this?"

Tear admittedly could not think of a particularly good response to that one. Natalia, however, hunched protectively over Asch's body, and said, "No, Luke, you can't do this! I won't let you!"

Ignoring her, Luke advanced on Asch's unconscious form, his pillow raised menacingly. Returning to her senses, Tear was overwhelmed by that nagging, moral sensation that she probably ought to _do_ something. Instinctively she reached for the daggers strapped to her legs, then stopped short. She didn't want to _kill _Luke… Frustrated, she grabbed the first thing she could get hold of and hurled it with all her might. The object spiraled through the air and conked Luke cleanly on the back of the head, sending him instantly to the ground.

"Mieeeeeeuuuuu…"

"Oh! I'm sorry, Mieu!" Tear said, rushing over to the cheagle, who was staggering back and forth on the ground next to Luke's head, using his ears for balance. "Are you okay?"

The small blue animal raised one paw as if to answer, then fell face forward on the ground.

Overhead, the moon was trying to edge toward the horizon without arousing suspicion. However, several astronomers with no lives and a fair number of couples across the world were still watching it. The moon heaved a moon-sigh. It was going to be a long night yet.

Van: Hello, ones with the same Christmas-based ideals. It's been a while, what with my dying. However, I'm not one to let a little thing like my own death stop me from doing an episode preview!

((Suspicious silence))

Van: Well, that's strange. I was expecting to be interrupted. No MATTER!

((Meanwhile, backstage))

Dist: _You _go interrupt him!

Legretta: I would never _dream _of interrupting the Commandant!

Dist: But isn't this your big chance to be with him again even though he's dead?

Legretta: That's no excuse for _rudeness_.

Dist: Fine, just, someone else do it.

Largo: But he already hates you. It can't possibly lessen his opinion of you at this point.

Dist: No, he'll just kill ME. He's crazy and already dead, there's no telling what he'll do!

Largo: …Sync? You hate everybody. Wanna go interrupt Van?

Sync: No.

Dist: But why?

Sync: Because there are four of you, and only one of Van. I'm actively hating more people by refusing to help you than I would if I interrupted Van.

All: …

((Back out in front))

Van: And then, when I was five, I remember I wanted a pony. So that I could ride out and smite the foolish children of Hod who bought into the Corporations' Holiday Propaganda. Then I would take them and form an army, and together we would free Hod, and then, the World! But I digress.

Van: Next time, on How the God Generals Replicated Christmas: What fate is in store for our heroes? Can the foolish replica and my sister confess their feelings for each other, making me Luke's in-law? Will Guy catch Dist and dismantle his heart?

((Dist runs screaming out from backstage, Guy hot in pursuit))

Dist: But-but-but-but this is just the episode preview! Come on!

Van: What will happen to Christmas in the wake of my death? Will another take up my banner to fight for gumdrops and the smiles of children and also justice? Will the world ever have another Christmas, ever again, and, if it does, will anyone bother to write about it? I'm informed that these questions will be answered somewhere along the line, but you know how I am about predetermining things.

Van: How the God Generals Replicated Christmas, Chapter 5: Don't You Wish Your Love Interest Wasn't Dead Like Me? You have everything you need, if you just believe! BEELIEEEEEEVE!

Ending Note: Woot another chapter down. We may actually be at the halfway point now, but I make no promises for the sheer mass of ideas involved here (to be honest I think they're alive and have a will of their own). At any rate, I've used up all the material I'd written last summer now, just in time to start writing NEW material that will take me forever to put up this summer! No, really, that was a joke…PUT DOWN THE PITCHFORKS!

Ahem. On to business:

"If this planet moves slower than 20 kilometers per second, it will crash into the sun!":_ Inspired by the premise of the movie __Speed__, which was a bus that would explode if it went under 50 mph. And yeah, I actually looked up the speed at which the Earth moves, and that's relatively quite a bit slower, just to be safe. Yay for physics-humor! I think. _

"I call it… Chia-Auldrant.":_ A joke off of Pinky and the Brain's episode where Brain creates "Chia-Earth." It's one of my favorites simply because the background music during the scene where they create their paper mache planet is Dvorak's Symphony No. 9, commonly known as the "New World Symphony." Definitely yay for music-based humor!_

Dist screaming "LIFE!":_ The line is basically ripped straight from __Young Frankenstein__'s creation scene (We've been doing various versions of __Frankenstein__ in English). Also I think it'd be kind of hilarious if he got that worked up every time he built a crazy robotic gadget. _

_((Also, yes, I know that Luke cutting his hair did happen, contrary to what Guy says, but he was right to say that it didn't happen previously in this fic. So close enough.))_

It's (finally)!:_ Before the title appeared in each episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus, there would always be a crazy looking guy who would say "It's!" and then the title would go up. The "(finally)" is, of course, both a reference to the delaying of the title and the fact that I haven't updated this in about four months._

The Chapter Title:_ Dual (or is that combined?) meaning here, since we have both sets of replicas fighting in this chapter. The first bit is, of course, borrowed from Asch and Luke's fight. Well, technically Asch says something like "This is a fight to settle who we are!" but I always recalled "settle," as "determine." And besides, it fit this better. The second bit is ripped from Futurama's "All My Circuits" segements, making fun of the soap opera amnesia plot device. This would be with regards to the whole soap opera-y love parallelogram between Anise and Ion and Florian and Arietta._

"Even if you were a demon, I'd love you anyway": _I swear that this is the gist of the Anime version of Disgaea's opening theme. Which is terrible, because that sort of takes the humor out and makes it a horrible cliché. I've considered that it's actually a parody, but it just didn't feel like one._

"There are only 363 minutes until the Christmas party ends and Love is destroyed by the radioactive contamination of Despair!": _This is how each episode of Space Battleship Yamato would end, saying how long the Yamato has to complete its voyage and return to Earth with the Cosmo Cleaner D (I love that name…) before the radiation will reach the underground cities and wipe out the rest of humanity. They initially had a year, hence the 363 minutes._

'I will never rest till then; this I swear, this I swear by the stars!': _A line from the song "Stars" out of Les Miserables, one of its many awesome songs. Go Philip Quast as Javert!_

Arietta not realizing that there were two Ions: _This was actually my mistake, but it was made way back when I first wrote this. Rather than try to fix it, I decided to run with it and make it a joke. (How many of –you- remembered that Arietta wasn't supposed to know about Florian during the Santa scene anyway? Now I'm curious) Because all the things in this fic that tie into other things in it are a tad on the ridiculously complicated side, the fact that I never do outlines has… not really come to bite me so much as make me say to myself "WHY DON'T YOU JUST DO AN OUTLINE, WHY?" As it is I'm still working on when certain events have to happen so that I can squeeze them in but still have everything make sense. But it's getting easier as I get more of the ideas written._

"No one ever dies in a Tales game. Except Asch.": _Okay, so definitely not true, but you have to admit, it is relatively amusing. And I still have trouble getting over how Symphonia "killed" and then revived everyone. That was just a bit ridiculous._

—his Turkey Leg was missing the vital z at the end:_ Part of me never recovered from seeing Nickolodeon's "Turkey Legz!" commercials during Thanksgiving. Yes, they were a joke, but STILL!_

"—some adorable pictures of a cat with things on top of it—": _THERE IS ACTUALLY A BOOK OF THIS! It is a book filled with NOTHING but pictures of cats with random objects on top of them. Actually, there are TWO, because the one I saw was the SEQUEL. My inner writer is STILL pissed off about that. Bad enough every single politician and actor thinks they can write, but there's a point where it really feels like there's just no effort involved…_

"It's nice and warm out here, isn't it?": _This is a "line" from Gankutsuou, the second of two translations I will never let up on Geneon about. My Japanese-scholar friend (Julia, incidentally) hasn't actually checked over what the line is literally, but fansub groups initially had it as "When we're like this… it's warm, isn't it?" which felt a lot more like a realistic thing to say under the circumstances. Admittedly the fansub groups could have consciously gone for the yaoi aspect, but I find it more likely that Geneon would consciously steer away. Also Geneon's line just sounds silly._

"No big dramatic speeches or drawn-out depression or… drilling statues somehow": _Just another Gurren Lagann reference here, move along. Though I seriously don't get how the drilling of statues works. In a "physically possible" sense. Also where the dirt/rock came from in the middle of the ship…_

"A commemorative AMV set to something by Linkin Park": _Yeah, okay, so I'm not sure Linkin Park is really used for commemorative AMVs, but there are always lots of AMVs set to songs by Linkin Park and lots of AMVs that are commemorating characters, so it just sort of fits. Of course, TotA has 80 gazillion LukexTear fanart slideshows instead, but that's beside the point._

"Puppies and also the opening theme from Chobits": _Okay, now, as teenage boys go, I'm a bit of a romantic, I will admit, and I can go for cute things now and then. But seriously, "Let Me Be With You," is just the most ridiculously over the top saccharine thing ever. I think it actually may go a bit too far and start to come back the other way. Or else it loops several times and ends somewhere in the middle. Anyway, it seemed like appropriate background music, especially since the Ions are "fighting" over a girl._

In the Bottom of a Locked File Cabinent in the Dark Basement with No Stairs Behind a Door that says 'Beware of Leopard.': _Where Arthur Dent finally found the plans to demolish his house "on display," in the beginning of The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy._

"The moon will crash into the earth in either three days or three weeks.": _This is a reference to the semi-common plot device of trying to stop the moon falling on the Earth. The former is from The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, while the latter is Gurren Lagann._

BiNAh H8rs: _A joke off of emo/death metal band names, which tend to be ridiculous (actually, all band names lately…). Also a pun, since, as one of the Sephirot in the Jewish Kabbalah (let NO ONE tell you that TotA was ripping off Final Fantasy by calling them Sephiroth. They used them in a way that was semi-consistent with the mythology/teachings they were drawn from), Binah is considered the "Power of Love" (well, also understanding and such, I think. Just because I'm Jewish doesn't mean I don't still need to look this stuff up on Wikipedia.) Oh, and the general idea here with the black tallit and whatnot is that I just cannot picture a Jewish emo band. It is a pretty hilarious idea, though._

"Over Nine Thousand!": _Another obligatory internet meme. Also one which caught on with a few friends around the time Julia and I hatched this particular idea, though I forget which led to the other._

"Well, excuuuse me, Princess!": _Link's infamous line from the horribly bad Legend of Zelda cartoon series. It just seemed to fit the situation. In a funny story, a friend of mine gave me a copy of the aforementioned series as "an interesting conversation piece," for Christmas, though I wrote this line first._

"And what happened then? Well, in Baticul they say, that the glare on Asch's face got slightly less glare-y that day.": _Note that this (and the later use of "roast beast") is actually the ONLY reference to How the Grinch Stole Christmas in the entire fic. All the other rhyming sections have been playing off of 'Twas the Night Before Christmas. I realized that just after I wrote I, and so I decided that I was going to continue the trend, so that this bit would be immortalized as the only time I actually drew a reference to what the title was playing off of._

"'Pipiru piru piru pipiru pi.'": _The "magic spell," that the title character of "Club-to-Death" Angel Dokuro-Chan uses to revive the main character after brutally (and comically) murdering him for some minor offense. Also featured extensively in the opening theme._

"Silent Night.": _Well, two of Tear's spells are actually "Holy Song" and "Nightmare" so "Silent Night, Holy Night," isn't such a stretch. Plus it seemed obligatory for if I wanted to have Christmas Fonic Hymns. Though I did initially have the lyrics wrong (Julia corrected me), which I suppose is what I get for trying to quote "Silent Night" as a Jew._

Tear flipping out over people interrupting her singing: _I swear the only time Tear gets really angry in the whole game is when Luke makes the "melon" remark. Therefore, I of course have plenty of sexual innuendo going on, but I figured she needed another quirk so that I could officially make her angry more often than the game itself. Also this just presented itself as an amusing idea (because really, nothing sucks like getting interrupted in the middle of a song, especially if it's also a spell). Oh, and the bit on getting the meter all mixed up is loosely based on personal experience getting lost in a piece of music, though it's not really anything special. Also I don't actually sing, I'm a (not very good) cellist, but that should be irrelevant._

"2.5 Kilo Hello Kitties": _Really, this is just kind of fun to say, though I had no idea what series/thing I was going to use as a "scientific" measure of cuteness until a friend suggested Hello Kitty._

A look such as Anise's glare mentioned earlier in this chapter: _Hah! You thought I'd forget about, "Anise glared at him with a look that could be a metaphor unto itself"? Nope! Now the only question is whether everyone else did over the course of… ah…4000-odd words._

"Donna Nobis Pacem": _So, I guess this is actually the name of a battle theme from Tales of Destiny 2? But I listened to it and it sounds nothing like the original song. I have to admit, that disappointed me._

The Organ in Tataroo Valley: _Seriously, we don't see anything specific to the scene when it's just the vocals, but then we switch over to actually seeing Tear sing when the organ (I think) that is obviously not present in the valley is playing. I mean, it was probably good for the scene because the song was written to be put together like that, but still, weird._

Largo and Ingobert: _So, since I keep putting them together in being overprotective of Natalia, I thought perhaps they should do something together (also to affirm that they didn't just disappear inexplicably). However, when I tried to imagine them having a conversation what I came up with was… pretty much what you see here. I mean, really, what DO you say in that situation?_

Luke and Asch's Fighting Style: _Okay, so they should probably be swinging the pillows one-handed almost all the time, but really, who does that? Okay, me, but only with smallish pillows!_

"Burning Stuffing":_ Don't underestimate the power of very hot stuffing. My mom actually got a pretty severe burn on one foot from a tray of stuffing on Thanksgiving when I was little. She's fine, obviously, or I wouldn't joke about it, but the point here is… uh… hot stuffing is hot or something._

And somewhere, a glass ball dropped. Then another dropped, chasing after it.: _A line out of Karma, of course! Not the line that plays during the part of the opening I was spoofing, but that part wouldn't have worked in prose at all._

Glowing Mistletoe: _I guess somewhere along the line I started thinking of this effect the way the flumes are described in the Pendragon series by D.J. Machale (they're really very good books). Weird. I didn't actually realize it until I started writing that there was music coming from the thing and then I was like "…This is exactly how flumes activate, isn't it? Oh well, may as well go ahead with it."_

_Well, there you have it. I won't say the next chapter won't take as long, but I'll see if I can keep up my desire to work on the thing. I do still want to do some LukexTear moments, and the ones I'm thinking of will probably be in the next chapter, so until then, um…Merry Christmas in April? No? Well, okay, then Happy my Birthday in a few days._


End file.
